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: Draft concept for new motorway ramps revealed
Peter Baulch, North Arm: A plan to connect a future council feeder road cannot ease existing traffic congestion on the Sunshine Motorway. A new Yandina-Coolum Road interchange would, and Dan Purdie made getting it the centrepiece of his three successful Ninderry election campaigns from Opposition. Ever since he eventually made it to the government benches, all we have heard about it from him is crickets.
- Read the story: Waste facility fire sparks battery warning
J. Konrad, Peregian: Tips are overflowing. Unnecessary packaging materials are increasing. Disposal costs are climbing. Many other countries have solved the problem by incinerating waste and generating energy at the same time. Incineration is a thermal waste treatment process that combusts waste at high temperatures, reducing waste volume by up to 90 per cent. It reduces landfill reliance and can generate energy. Let’s encourage governments to adopt smarter solutions.
- Read the story: Federal scrutiny triggers consultation on road project
Alan Dunn: This design should never have been allowed as a better and easier choice would be to use Arthur Street from Bowman Road to a proper interchange at Nicklin Way, without the traffic lights. On the Sunshine Coast it’s in keeping with the rest of our road systems, of which there is not a well-designed or built system to properly cope with our traffic, especially the so-called interchange of Caloundra Road and the Bruce Highway. This is an absolute disaster, just to name one. I wonder when we might just get it done properly?
- Read the article: ‘Lot more to do’: MP’s pledge in booming electorate
Andrew Moran, Battery Hill: The recent article outlining the LNP MP for Caloundra’s claimed “achievements” in our fast‑growing electorate deserves a clearer look. Several of the projects presented as progress were already planned, already committed or already proceeding without any new government action. The new school was always on the way – its opening is now pushed back to 2028. The new town centre is similarly a developer‑led project that was always proceeding. The Congestion Busting Plan, repeatedly referenced, still has no confirmed funding, no costings, no defined scope and no delivery dates. The Wave is an undefined, scaled‑down and unfunded version of the major rail initiative that was originally promoted. The Bribie Island breakthrough was remedial work to stabilise an urgent erosion issue, not the long‑term solution required.
Residents in a rapidly growing area rely on accurate information about project status and delivery. This article confirms nothing material has changed since the last round of photo opportunities. Voters deserve transparency about what is actually being delivered — not slogans, recycled announcements or distraction.
- Read the story: Overnight parking banned in bid to end behaviour issues
Roger Harrison, Mooloolaba: Now that action is underway to dampen anti-social behaviour in the car park opposite the Bluff car park, perhaps we may look at the largest pollutant in this area: motorbike and car exhausts, and hooning from the traffic lights.
We live on the fifth floor along Douglas Street and often we are woken or startled by very loud vehicle noises produced by idiots who love their exhaust systems more than their neighbours. Often we hear a collective of vehicles ‘dragging’ from a standing start.
Yes, I was young once and have done similar ‘stuff’, but never in a way to scare the daylights out of local residents. Maybe replace the lights with a roundabout? If vehicles do not have to stop, noise will diminish. Or place a police avatar at three points of the intersection with cameras? Just trying to think outside the box.
- Read the story: Fresh push for new laws to curb caravan parking
Peter Dun, Cotton Tree: On the one hand, I’d like to commend Sunshine Coast Council for making some effort towards curbing caravan, boat and trailer parking and overnight camping on our residential streets, yet at the same time there is so much more that needs to be done, and can easily, by council if it has the will to do it. In previous conversations with council I’ve been told various reasons why these issues are not resolved, including that it requires state government changes to legislation. Council has all the power it needs to stop these behaviours, including introducing maximum parking times, preventing overnight parking, providing parking permits to the registered ratepayers to allow parking in just the street segment of their property, restricting parking to only registered passenger carrying motor vehicles thereby eliminating boats, trailers, caravans and so on. It just needs council’s commitment to implement one or more of these solutions. Beyond what is within council’s control, if further action is required, which does need state government legislation changes, then progress that too in parallel.
- Wars end
Gary Reynolds, Peregian Springs: History gives us every reason to believe that wars end not by accident but because ordinary people refuse to surrender hope. The greatest mistake we can make is to accept conflict as inevitable. The moment we do, peace slips further from our reach.
I was born at the end of the Second World War, when the generation before me – despite hunger, grief and unimaginable loss – found the strength to forgive, rebuild and reach across old divides. In the darkest days, when the airwaves carried nothing but bad news, they still held fast to hope. Leaders like our own John Curtin reminded them that courage is not the absence of fear but the refusal to bow to it. Because of their determination, we now count Germany and Japan among our closest allies, even after the horrors inflicted on Australians and so many others. That transformation did not happen by magic. It happened because people believed reconciliation was possible.
Look to our own lifetimes: guerrilla wars in Vietnam, South Africa and Ireland eventually gave way to peace because the world persisted. Hope was not naive – it was necessary.
So, when we speak of today’s conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, history tells us something vital: peace is not impossible. It is simply unfinished. If our generation cannot complete the task then we must clear the path for the next.
But we make that task harder every year that we allow eight million children to die before the age of five – a silent holocaust of the young. Among the children who survive, we can only hope that future global leaders emerge with the courage of Malala Yousafzai, who survived a targeted assassination attempt by the Taliban for insisting that girls the world over deserve an education. At just 17, she became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a global symbol of what moral clarity looks like in a troubled world.
Our parents and grandparents showed us what is possible when hope is stubborn and peace is pursued with discipline. Our role now is to do the same: to end the wars we can and to lay a foundation strong enough for the next generation to finish the path to peace.
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.
