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. Some of the opinions below are comments from SCN’s Facebook page.
- Read the story: Council orders deflation of circus clown promotions
Val Breiner: In a time of gloom and doom, the circus clown blow-ups bring a smile to all who pass by. Seeing they are on private property, surely council is not that mean-spirited to require its removal! Start by creating some joy and make council popular by rescinding the decision. Thank you, another local ratepayer.
Janet Gibson, Noosaville: Generations of adults growing up in Australia remember the excitement of a circus rolling through the main street. Clowns and jugglers, followed by the lingering smells as we children followed them to the park and climbed trees surrounding the footy field to watch the big top being raised, then running home to nag our parents until they agreed to a family night at the circus.
The circus is part of a child’s right of passage to become emerged within their creative imagination, to be entertained by people flying through the air as clowns play pranks to make us laugh. The question I ask myself is whether the circus is part of a child’s cultural right of passage? Or is it a mere commercial activity and has no relevance to our collective childhood memories? As adults do we desire to take our children to experience the excitement we experienced as children? If your answer is “yes”, the circus is part of our cultural heritage, then we must all strive to protect the circus along with our local show days with show bags. Only one event is celebrated with a public holiday, while the other has a history of being shunned by “the establishment”.
Noosa has another opportunity to make a stand with more than its “no high rise” stance and a UNESCO biosphere. Can Noosa Council build on our cultural awareness, possibly leading once more? It would take the council to develop an “exception management clause”, within the signage by-laws, to allow temporary extra signage to be addressed and approved for one-off significant events. The circus is more than just clowning around with blow-up advertising, it’s a cry for recognising the past, which informs the few remaining strands of our cultural past and childhood memories.
Kenneth Simpson: Inflatable clowns for Russian circus. What’s next? Santa Claus signs? How petty Noosa Council.
Suzanne James, Salisbury Downs SA: I understand the sentiment that most children love seeing the clowns around town. But spare a thought for those of us, young and old, who suffer from coulrophobia, which is a fear of clowns. I personally, upon coming upon a clown real or otherwise, will experience an elevated heart rate, panic, fear and severe anxiety. To turn down a road with one unexpectedly coming into sight can even cause car accidents. People often disregard phobia, but it is very real.
Carol McCormick, Cooroy: Bureaucracy gone mad and on private land. If I was Moscow Circus I would boycott the area. I am sure other council areas would appreciate the dollars that it brings into their community.
- Read the story: Event shifted amid threats to ignore road closures
Robert Collins: Gee, Australia is backwards. Two weeks ago, Passo Stelvio in northern Italy was closed to all traffic except cyclists blocking a major thoroughfare through the Italian Alps. However, the event attracted 20,000 cyclists, trampers and numerous tourist dollars all being pumped into restaurants and turning neighbouring Bormio into a tourist mecca. A skiing paradise in winter. A mountain bike, cycling and hiking mecca. No one is inconvenienced and the locals embrace it. In fact, everyone cycles and motorists respect cyclists. Australia has no idea. Such a pity as the potential is huge.
Kere Buchanan: The overall reaction and commentary by the Yandina and surrounding community, apart from a very small number of extreme comments, were reasonable and justified.
Panama Gold: I live on one of the affected streets. We were given three weeks’ notice that we would be housebound next weekend. I already had several plans in place, workshops booked and paid for, kids work drop-offs and pick-ups etc. I was told I wouldn’t be able to leave or re-enter my own property. I am more than happy to make reasonable accommodations to make this event happen, however to be told (not consulted) that all my plans for the weekend needed to be cancelled at short notice is ludicrous. There are multiple small businesses in my street also – they are just expected to close and lose profit for four days? There’s more to this story than a ‘bunch of whinging locals’.
Benjamin Treble: It’s interesting to read how quickly the social debate is about putting blame on either AusCycling or the locals. I’m of the opinion that it is council which holds the largest level of responsibility for this fiasco. Yes, AusCycling could communicate better, but it is never ever justified to make physical threats, especially when it involves children from the local community side. Even if it’s a small group of extreme locals who shouldered those threats, to the rest of the Yandina community, I hope you think twice about how you’ve reacted. You could have achieved a similar outcome without making threats to the cycling community. I’d love to hear more about what the council actually did. Typically, it would be the one responsible for dictating what community consultation is required to run events. AusCycling engaged a large professional third party to handle the traffic management and had been working with council for six months-plus on this event. The fact council didn’t flag this as an issue earlier or ensure a requirement for earlier community consultation was in place sets the stage for the current situation. Cyclists definitely don’t want to inconvenience locals for their races, there’s enough issues already between drivers versus cyclists within Australia. They want to do their races and support local communities.
- Read the story: Council outlines new approach for flood-resilient homes
Missy Duckworth, Forest Glen: I was surprised to read that more than $100,000 was spent on a report advising residents on floodplains to raise their homes. Elevated Queenslanders have stood across our state for generations because previous generations understood a simple reality: water goes where water has always gone. At a time when ratepayers are facing rising rates, insurance premiums and cost-of-living pressures, many will question whether spending six figures to restate well-known flood mitigation principles represents value for money. The more important question is why we continue to contemplate additional development in flood-prone areas rather than protecting floodplains and planning around the natural movement of water. Sometimes the best solutions are not found in expensive reports, but in common sense and lessons already learned.
- Read the story: Illegal e-bikes, e-scooters seized and crushed
Andrew Shaw: It’s not the bike that is illegal. Otherwise how are there so many openly sold by retailers? Wouldn’t the sensible thing be for authorities to go straight to the retail sellers and confiscate them before they are sold? Or if a buyer, individual or business gets it from an overseas supplier, the bike seized at the point of import into the country. Like illegal drugs or other substances?
Andy McMahon: Why wouldn’t these be auctioned off? What a blatant waste.
Robert McLean: About time, they needed to do something to make the roads and paths safer for everyone.
Daniel Paul: If the government had simply allowed these bikes to be ridden with basic requirements – online competency test, ID plate, insurance – then none of this would be necessary. These bikes are ridden 100 per cent legally in the US and EU every day of the year. If our politicians were able to draft effective public policy, they could be ridden safely by responsible people here too, and police could spend their time chasing people who are genuinely endangering others. Shame our policy makers only know how to crush and destroy things.
- Read the story: Lifeguard funding push gathers pace
Keryn Booker, Noosa: The surf clubs, especially (at) Noosa, are in prized positions on beachfront, with massive bars and dining areas. Why should government have to fund precious money that could be used elsewhere, to surf clubs. Where is their money going?
- Read the story: Families left in limbo as au pair visas stall
Tom Fitzpatrick, Buderim: Sunshine Coast babysitters Facebook page has plenty of good childcare options from highly component locals. You obviously have to pay them a fair wage however.
- Read the story: AI revolution hinges on data centre ‘social licence’
Penny, Coes Creek: The article I read on SCN about AI immediately made me see that the billionaires at the Melbourne conference are using the oldest sales tactics in the book, scarcity and urgency, to make the Australian government act.
AI centres create more and faster information (accelerated information) but Australia actually doesn’t need that as desperately as it needs to be a country that produces real things (creating employment, reducing reliability on foreign countries.) That of course will take the governments (at all levels) to make some hard decisions around tightening the purse strings in some areas and redirecting resources to areas that enable the country to be independent and strong. One that inspires its population to step up to contribute rather than sit back and take.
The precious resources that AI centres use so much of, are needed by the country to become independent, to secure food chains in a future where the climate will not be as reliable as we have come to expect over the last 200 to 400 years.
I read today that while Australia needs construction of all sorts, we are losing construction workers. This is yet another precious resource (to be used by data centres) redirected away from areas that actually help our country. Why does Australia want data centres that fill the pockets of billionaires who don’t even come from here? They really are using us. They will take far more than Australia will get from this deal. We are a proud people, and we need to look after ourselves first and earn some respect on the global stage. Don’t get me wrong, I like development and forward trajection, but Australia needs to be independent and able to stand up for itself, so it needs to be on our terms.
- Read the story: Volunteers confront relentless rubbish problem
Mark Frischkorn, Buderim: In Brisbane, ratepayers receive free dump vouchers each year when they pay their rates. The vouchers are for both general and green waste. I suggested this system to Sunshine Coast Council 15 years ago when casual dumping of rubbish was a problem, but was told it would be too expensive and difficult to implement a similar system. Council promotes itself as being progressive, but it obviously does not relate to this issue. Perhaps our council could discuss this with Brisbane City Council with a view to implementing a similar system? The recent 10 per cent increase in rates may even fund the initiative.
Liana Vizl: I believe residents should be getting vouchers to attend waste facilities included in our rates notice. Moreton Bay does it. It would be cheaper than employing someone to remove the illegally dumped waste and people would actually take their waste to the recycling and waste facilities. Seems really strange that the Sunshine Coast doesn’t do it? It’s an easy fix.
Dennis Lithgow: I was charged $80 at Nambour tip last week to take a 6×4 trailer of rubbish. I would never dump in the bush but at these prices I understand why some do.
- Read the story: Scores stuck in hospitals awaiting aged care
Paul Seymour: It’s about time the government got off its backside to get aged care facilities up and running. [A Sunshine Coast public hospital] does not have the facilities anymore. I went there in an emergency capacity, waited five hours and had to leave as the pain was too bad sitting, so I got a taxi home and passed out for two days. Impossible situation.
- Yes we can
Gary Reynolds, Peregian Springs: Every so often, we need to remind ourselves of what Australia has achieved – especially as the pessimists get louder.
In 2008, Barack Obama’s campaign popularised the slogan “Yes We Can”, but long before it echoed across American rallies, Australia had already lived that spirit. Our history is full of reforms declared “impossible” until persistence, evidence and sheer community commitment proved otherwise.
Take Medicare. Today it’s woven so tightly into Australian life that imagining the country without it feels absurd. Yet it took three decades of failed attempts, scare campaigns, political hostility and entrenched vested interests before universal healthcare finally became law.
What began as “too radical” and “too risky” became one of our proudest national achievements. Yes we can became yes we did.
Or consider child support reform in the 1980s. Before garnishing wages, compliance hovered at a miserable 30 per cent, and custodial parents – mostly women – lived in poverty while bureaucracies shrugged.
When experts proposed direct wage deductions, the idea was treated as heresy. Yet, persistence won again. Today the system has been in place for nearly two generations.
These stories matter in 2026 because the familiar chorus has returned: “It can’t be done. Too hard. Too expensive. The sky will fall in”.
Whether the topic is housing affordability, cost‑of‑living relief, climate adaptation or modernising social supports, the naysayers are out in force – just as they were during every major reform we now take for granted. The lesson from Medicare and child support is simple: ideas aren’t the hard part – endurance is. Real reform requires years of grind, political courage and a refusal to accept that the status quo is immovable.
Negativity has always been loud in Australia, but it has rarely been right. If we want a more confident, forward‑looking nation, we should stop mistaking pessimism for wisdom. Our history shows that progress comes from those who push through resistance, not those who declare defeat before the work begins.
Australia has done the “impossible” before. Can we do it again? Yes, we can.
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. Some of the opinions above are comments from SCN’s Facebook page.
