Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb for accountability, credibility and transparency. Preference will be given to letters of 100 words or less.
- Read the story: Island breakthrough review opens to public feedback
As a resident of Pelican Waters, I am vitally concerned with the ongoing breakthroughs of Bribie Island and the apparent lack of concern and action from our elected authorities and the absence of adequate communication with residents.
My observation is that breakthroughs are widening as weeks go by. Goodness knows what will happen with the next major weather event, which will inevitably occur.
While Pelican Waters is a significant distance away from Bribe Island and Golden Beach, the intervening area is essentially flat with minimal topographic variation, which must ultimately make Pelican Waters vulnerable to an extraordinary weather event.
We need action, and now.
Stuart Lowery, Pelican Waters
This is the work of nature and humans should not intervene in any way shape or form.
Let Mother Nature take her course.
The waterfront property owners, who represent a minuscule percentage of our community, have had the privileged benefit of living on the waterfront and it may be time for them to take a back seat and move off.
They should be thankful to Mother Nature for the time she gave them there.
Mark Knight, Sunshine Coast
I have lived on the Sunshine Coast since 1956 and have seen many changes made by man and nature. A large chunk of Mount Crookneck is threatening to fall, therefore climbing is prohibited. That is nature creating change, which man cannot stop. The old, treacherous road from Landsborough to Maleny was made safer by man by building a safer road.
The breakthrough of the sand build-up east of Caloundra (wrongly referred to as North Bribie) was a natural occurrence.
I have been diving off the diving boards and swimming at Bulcock Beach since the early 1960s. There was no great build-up of sand to the east. There was no Happy Valley beach, just a build-up of sand where a carnival would set up for the holidays and people would camp with vans. Happy Valley sand has come and gone and will continue to do so forever.
So it was with the sand build-up east of Caloundra: it will come and go as it has done for years past. I do remember the Caloundra Bar at Bulcock Beach was treacherous and saw many accidents due to the torrent of water coming from the passage at low tide, then from the ocean at high tide.
Bribie lies east of the Pumicestone Passage. The narrow passage allows the water to run north and south with the tides. At the moment, the water cannot empty to the north as the sand has built up from Happy Valley to join the build-up of sand east of Caloundra. I will not refer to the mass of sand with a few scrubby shrubs growing (about 30 years old) as Bribie Island. Therefore, the water flowing from the south to Caloundra, has nowhere to empty, creating a pond of water caught between Bulcock Beach and the sand build-up to the east, which is not flushed at each tide.
The passage extends from south of Bribie to Caloundra. With heavy residential, industrial and business development on the mainland within the same parallel, the impact on the passage waterway surely would have been impacted. There have been reports of sewage plant waste going into the passage at times of floods and faults in the plant. The Pumicestone Passage needs to be managed and the water flowing from the south needs to flush out, then let in the fresh water from the north. Otherwise, the northern end of the passage, which is Bulcock Beach, will be a cesspool.
Golden Beach has been inhabited since before I was born (1956). The homes, some made of fibro, still stand today and have withstood cyclones, floods and storms. Many long-time residents used Military Jetty to launch fishing boats, as did my father. That is why I am familiar with the area. There was no permanent sand build-up with vegetation on it to the east that I can remember but there were a number of sandbanks in the passage that came and went, and lots of sea grass.
The foreshore has not been eroded or damaged in all this time. I’m sure the authorities who positioned the beacon tower on the esplanade of Golden Beach would have done a study of past erosion and possible erosion in the future before the tower was built. The esplanade was planned by a past council and has been there for a very long time. Unfortunately, previous councils have permitted buildings to be built east of the esplanade. In a wise move, parks and rock walls have been added in some spots to stop building east of the esplanade. People who build on the waterfront, be it river or ocean, know there are risks for such a position, especially when the foundation is sand.
The recent discussion regarding the recent breakthrough of the ‘build-up of sand’ east of Caloundra (Golden Beach) has been on Facebook and drawn feedback from many who have known the area for years. Most of the feedback has not supported the theory that a catastrophe is about to befall the residents of Golden Beach.
Council money would be better spent opening the northern end of the Pumistone Passage to what was and should be.
There will always be someone, like Chicken Little, creating panic by crying “The sky is falling!” when really it was just nature doing what nature does.
Sandra Fietz, Beerwah
- Read the article: Group works towards reliable harbour access
The cost of dredging to MSQ is significant but there are benefits to this process.
Erosion on our beaches at Mooloolaba is inevitable but dredging of the channel at the rock wall has become an essential process to keep thousands of beachgoers that flock here every year. There may be a solution to stop the sand from forming in the channel but the beach erosion will continue.
Council and MSQ need to share the cost of dredging breakdown. It could be 75 per cent council, 25 per cent MSQ.
Reg Trevor Lobegeier, Alexandra Headland
- Read the article: Candidates outline why they should get your vote
It’s disappointing to see attacks on independent candidate Keryn Jones for receiving donations from Climate 200, a community crowdfunding platform supported by thousands of Australians who want more integrity in politics.
Meanwhile, LNP MP Andrew Wallace is directly subsidised by Australian taxpayers who pay not only for his five electorate staff to help on his re-election campaign, but also his communications budget. He also has the full weight of the Liberal Party’s fundraising machine – which includes big money from billionaire donors, gambling companies and fossil fuel interests and the most profitable supermarkets in the world – behind him.
If we’re going to have a conversation about campaign funding, let’s make it an honest one. Because there’s a big difference between grassroots support from thousands of Australians, and a system that’s heavily backed by vested interests and subsidised by the taxpayer.
Laura Sillano, Little Mountain
- Read the article: Your say: sewage overflow, rise of AI and more
Your Good Friday correspondent who reminisced fondly about the blip of economic activity that the construction of a nuclear power plant brought to his native Gloucestershire village in the 1960s may be unaware of how things have worked out since.
Berkeley was the first commercial nuclear power station in the United Kingdom to be decommissioned. Reactor 2 was shut down in October 1988, followed by Reactor 1 in March 1989.
So far the nuclear decommissioning process has involved the removal of all fuel from the site in 1992 and the demolition of structures such as the turbine hall in 1995 and cooling ponds in 2001.
The next step of decommissioning will be the care and maintenance stage of the nuclear reactor structures, scheduled to commence in 2026, until radioactive decay means that they can be demolished, and the site completely cleared between 2070 and 2080.
We should be careful what we wish for.
Peter Baulch, North Arm
- Read the story: Woman bitten on hands by dingo on K’gari
I have lived on the Sunshine Coast since the 1970s and camped on Fraser Island for many years, eventually building a home with accommodation along the beachfront and moving there in 1998, spending 22 years living with dingoes in our yard. I interacted with them without ever having a problem.
In the early days the brumbies were more of a nuisance, flocking around the vehicle in packs, putting their heads in the windows, slobbering on the kids and would occasionally bite looking for food. But we rarely saw a dingo and they ran away into the bush if they saw you.
There is a dingo problem on the island now and it has been getting steadily worse over the years. Visitors don’t seem to comprehend that they are wild animals and should be treated as such. As a South African friend who was caretaking a property on the island said: “You wouldn’t interact with wild animals in Africa, why do they do it here?”
I attended a meeting held at the Eurong Beach Resort with Sid Melksham, the Kingfisher Bay Resort, national parks rangers and other stakeholders holders who were concerned about the growing dingo problem. Many points of view were debated and suggestions like fencing off an area for the dogs, creating a feeding area in a remote part of the island, culling the amount of dogs and advertising to make the public more aware of the dangers.
None of this has ever been done successfully.
In my opinion the problem is obvious. All photos of the dingoes in advertising, signage and brochures and television footage all show this wild animal as a beautiful, cuddly, playful, happy, smiling dog, like so many families with children have at home.
We need to show the public, especially our kids, photos of a bloody arm or a superimposed dingo’s mouth biting a leg instead of giving them the wrong message. What are QPWS rangers or their bosses afraid of? We see this in all forms of media today so after suggesting this all those years ago, let’s get real because the things they have tried over the years are not changing the public perception of the dingo.
Neville Siede, Maroochydore
- Renewing our history
A patriotic 90-year-old friend, Creel Price, gifted me a six-volume set of the leather-bound History of Australia for writing his recollections.
The other day, the shelf supporting the weighty volumes in my leadlight bookcase collapsed. Turning the pages, I realised they were a century old, printed in 1925. As with Creel, what came through was a tremendous sense of pride in Australia as an exceptional country and people united around shared compelling visions.
The prime ministers of the time embraced these authentic beliefs. Billy Hughes spoke of uniting to create a land fit for heroes in gratitude to the Anzacs and those who followed for their sacrifices for current and future Australians like us. Stanley Bruce launched nation-building policies under the vision of Australia Unlimited. The pages overflow with optimism for what we could do as a united people.
Today’s cynics may see this as the naivety of our forebears who hadn’t experienced the Great Depression, World War II, or the threat of nuclear war. However, what we still have is a bountiful land populated with locally born and other talented people from around the world in a fully functioning democracy.
It would be great if we accept the electoral decision of the Australian people and advance together, harnessing the optimistic spirit of 100 years ago and the pure patriotism of Creel.
Garry Reynolds, Peregian Springs
- Read the article: Your say: sewage overflow, rise of AI and more
J. Gregory’s vitriolic letter falls short in many areas.
Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. In 2006, Palestinians voted for Hamas to govern. Almost immediately, Hamas and Hezbollah (proxies of Iran) began daily missile attacks on Israel and a series of terror bombings among Jewish civilians. On at least two occasions, Gazans were offered a two-state solution, which were declined.
The horrific events of October 7 were unprecedented in our modern times and heaven knows what depravity took place in the tunnels.
I believe the unfounded cries from J. Gregory of kidnappings, torture, starvation and murder of a corralled and oppressed people are nonsense.
Phil Broad, Nambour
Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb for accountability, credibility and transparency. Preference will be given to letters of 100 words or less.
