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: Hospital parking spillover sparks council review
Lurline Comerford: This article does not refer to the parking issues of day patients, their carers and/or their children and other patients and those people visiting in-patients.
It is essential that all workers have access to safe parking or access to suitable public transport. Residents in the vicinity of hospitals and various other medical facilities clearly benefit from close proximity to these essential services but should not suffer undue decline in neighbourhood amenity.
So … what of patients and their support people? There is no practical public transport available north of the Maroochy River. Taxis/ Ubers etc are costly and detract from reasonable access to public and private hospitals. It’s a case then of drive or be driven in your vehicle if you can.
From Coolum, for example, if you’re lucky, it’s a one to two-hour round trip depending on the chaos on the road. People coming from the west or south? Possibly similar I’m guessing.
Some subsidies may be available for some people I suppose. Ambulance transport in some cases too. Two-way public transport is non-existent. Special hospital visit bus services need to be developed. Cheap or free parking for patients is worthy of noting, analysing and being included in any improvements. Surely it’s not just the immediate residents who struggle?
Jojo Kelso: As a Queensland Health staff member who works across both Sunshine Coast University Hospital (SCUH) and Nambour Hospital, I’d like to share another perspective on the staff parking issue.
While increasing parking capacity may help, I believe workforce planning should also be part of the solution. Many staff who live close to SCUH would be happy to walk, ride a bicycle or use a motorbike to get to work if they were primarily rostered there. Likewise, staff who live closer to Nambour could be rostered there more often.
Instead, many of us are regularly required to travel between the two hospitals, meaning staff who could otherwise avoid driving have no choice but to commute by car. Reviewing staff allocations, where clinically appropriate, could reduce the number of vehicles needing to park at SCUH each day while also reducing travel time and fuel costs for staff.
Parking fees are another challenge. Staff currently pay around $10.22 per day, which is more than $100 per fortnight for full-time employees. At a time when many people are already facing cost-of-living pressures, this is a significant expense, especially when parking is limited.
I hope Queensland Health will consider not only expanding parking, but also reviewing rostering and staff allocation across SCUH and Nambour as part of a practical, long-term solution.
- Read the story: Search starts for new SEQ dam site
Andrew Moran, Battery Hill: While the government’s plan to investigate a new dam and upgrade existing storages is important, experience from other jurisdictions shows that dams alone are not enough. Regions facing rapid growth, climate variability and rising demand increasingly adopt portfolio approaches that combine multiple tools rather than relying on a single major asset. They treat water security as a climate resilience issue, not just an engineering challenge.
Modern water security requires:
- Diversified supply – dams supported by desalination, recycled water and groundwater;
- Demand management – efficiency programs, leakage reduction and smart metering;
- Climate‑ready planning – modelling future rainfall, drought risk and extreme events;
- Strong community safeguards – environmental, cultural and social impact protections; and
- Integration with housing, jobs and infrastructure – ensuring water systems keep pace with growth.
As the Sunshine Coast continues to grow, adopting a broader, portfolio‑based approach may help ensure long‑term water security without placing undue pressure on communities or the environment. Our futures depend on it.
- Read the story: Record field set for marathon festival on closed roads
Peter Watkins, Mudjimba: Ah well, it’s that time of year again – the marathon/triathlon time, with all the confusion and all the disruptions from the road closures. After decades of the triathlon road closures and now this marathon I would like to suggest that the course be moved around on alternate years – perhaps the even years on the current course and then the odd years it should be moved to the south – perhaps through Mooloolaba, up to the Kawana shopping centre, Point Cartwright Drive and south on Oceanic Drive as far as needed to make up the correct distance. I mean – nowhere else gets a turn but Maroochydore and all the suburbs north of the river. So it must be time for all of the coast to share the benefits – not just certain suburbs.
- Read the story: Access to popular beach flagged for review
John Thorogood, Maroochydore: Seriously, council must have way too much (of our) money. As the news states, the only issue with access to Stumers Creek is the illegal overnight and longer-stay campervans. Having been a frequent user of the beach for years, there’s always parking available, and perhaps because it’s a bit off the beaten track, something of a community vibe, particularly among the dog-owners. Council, I’ve watched incredulous as you’ve made a right mess of Ocean Street, Maroochydore at a reported cost of $800,000. Please don’t wreck Stumers Creek.
- Read the story: Suspension of key air service sparks disappointment
Graham Laws: As far as my wife and I am concerned, the airport might as well not be there. We travel over to New Zealand nearly every February to see our son and family at Christchurch, but guess what? No flights available unless we travel down to Brisbane.
John Thorogood, Maroochydore: What did they expect? As a frequent flyer (several inter-and intra-state flights a month; two or three international flights a year) living at Maroochydore, I would dearly love to support the Sunshine Coast Airport.
However, I also need to fly, when I need to fly. What use is a schedule that doesn’t have for example ‘same-day’ (or even overnight) flights to Cairns, Gladstone or Adelaide? It’s why Bonza collapsed and now why Jetstar has again cut operations from the Sunshine Coast.
For a carrier to operate successfully out of the Sunshine Coast, its needs to commit to providing ‘full service’. So, I guess I’ll just continue to fly out of Brisbane, adding to the congestion on the Bruce Highway along the way. I think it’s what’s called a ‘lose-lose’ outcome.
Jennifer Hay, Sippy Downs: Why does this not surprise me, they considered themselves and not the customers who had already booked with them, then as a lady mentioned, a hassle to get her money back. Your excitement about visiting loved one diminished.
Traveling to Auckland with Jetstar from here wasn’t well planned anyway. A three-and-a-half-hour flight, which they turned into anything from 10-to-13 hours to get to Auckland, how ridiculous. Direct flights were very few and far between. Stopping at either Sydney or Melbourne. They lost me with these ridiculous flights.
- Read the story: Study highlights spare rooms amid housing crisis
Phillip Adamson, Maroochydore: The news article was, in all, a good one and certainly relevant regarding the current housing crisis. However, no mention was made relating to capital gains tax and possible pension impact.
Graham Lockey, Coolum Beach: The answer is an emphatic NO to any attempt to oblige residence sharing. Don’t forget some in the UK’s attempt to bring in a Bedroom Tax to force sharing. Given the federal government’s stealth tax blanket excuse of ‘generational inequality’ (pollie speak for ‘tax the prudent to reward the rest’) we need to reject any move to oblige older, or any Australians, to sacrifice their home’s tranquility to bail out successive federal, state and local governments’ housing policy failures. All the waffle by ‘experts’ doesn’t change the fact, as stated: ‘However, participants also raised concerns around interpersonal conflict, power imbalances, lifestyle disruption and uncertainty about sharing a home with someone outside their family or friendship networks’. To put, especially, older people in a vulnerable position is social engineering at its worst. The reality is, if you, of your own free choice wish to rent out a room in your home that should be your choice alone.
Everyone, especially older people, need to assess the real risks before they do. How will this impact their pension/benefits? How will Centrelink view this change in ‘living arrangements’. Will the act of renting out part of their home make it assessable for Capital Gains Tax if they sell? How will their home and contents insurer react, and how will they price the change in risk? Will the local council rate a dwelling differently if it’s a ‘part rental’? How would eviction rules apply, especially with a move to prevent certain reasons being valid? Will the Rental Bond rules apply? Has the RTA got the capacity to support an ‘in house’ landlord? I doubt it. What would happen in the event of a forced sale of the property, say through divorce property settlements? The list of unknowns is endless!
- Read the story: Illegal camping blitz continues
John Thorogood, Maroochydore: When was it decided that some laws apply to all of us, and some no longer apply if you’re down on your luck? It’s a very dangerous way to apply ‘social justice’. The slipperiness of the slope should be obvious to even the most compassionate.
Waiving laws enacted to protect community amenity and the environment is a very poor way to address homelessness. And blaming the state is simply ‘buck-passing’. This council seems obsessed with virtue-signalling and window-dressing, when what the ratepayers desire and deserve is accessible and reliable service at minimal cost.
- Read the story: ‘Interim works’ to help traffic flow ahead of key road upgrade
Graham Higgins, Buderim: My complaint is about the slow pace of roadworks happening from the big roundabout at Sugar Road, Wises Road up to Mooloolaba, Buderim Road. I know we have had a lot of wet nights etc, but it’s hardly moved in progress. The way it’s going, we may see it finished just before the Olympics 2032.
- A burning issue
Margaret Wilkie. Peregian Beach: Canada, Spain and France burn, Europe swelters, typhoons devastate, towns flood, glaciers melt, seas rise, landslides bury, corals bleach but ugly wind and solar farms cause wind /sun burn, are bad for sheep but holes, coal and ‘nucula’? Please explain.
- Grandfatherly advice
Garry Reynolds, Peregian Springs: There’s a wisdom you hear from a grandfather leaning back on the veranda, hands folded, eyes soft – simple on the surface, until life proves it wasn’t simple at all.
My grandfather, Pa Claude, dropped truths like fence posts: plain, sturdy, impossible to ignore once they were in the ground.
He’d say: “If you don’t choose your path, you’ll end up walking someone else’s”. Expectations carry you along until you realise the life you’ve been living was never truly yours.
He’d warn: “People don’t test your strength; they test your limits” to see what you’ll tolerate.
He’d remind me: “If you’re always explaining yourself, you’re with the wrong people”. The right ones don’t need footnotes.
And he’d cut through modern busyness with: “A busy life can still be directionless”. Motion isn’t meaning. You can sprint through decades and still never arrive anywhere.
Then the one that stings: “You don’t get stuck by accident; you stay stuck by habit”. And its companion: “If you stay where you’ve outgrown, you’ll shrink”. Comfort is a lovely place to visit, not to live.
Pa kept productivity simple: “You don’t need more time, you need fewer distractions”. Respect? Earned by actions. Boundaries? If you can’t say no, you don’t control your life. And perhaps his quietest truth: “The wrong environment will change who you are”. Finally: “What you ignore repeatedly will eventually control you”.
Grandfatherly wisdom isn’t poetic. It’s lived‑in, weathered, and patient – waiting for the moment you realise you needed it. I didn’t know how much of my life was shaped by Pa’s quiet sentences until he was gone and I found myself reaching for them again.
- Reader appreciation
Judy Lovell, Burnett Heads: I just want to let you know that I do not live on the Coast but read Sunshine Coast News for one reason only – letters from Garry Reynolds of Peregian Springs.
Garry is an articulate and thoughtful voice in a world which can seem unpleasant at times. I love his civilised and intelligent contribution. I wish you could give him a regular spot as his articles would no doubt be worth a read. Thank you Garry.
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.
