News & Events

Check the events calendar below to see any upcoming GMAN or regional events. Our latest newsletter is 

hot off the press - Autumn 2018

Proudly brought to you by GMAN

Keeping Koalas in food

Our sub-committee has been working tirelessly to find a new site. Sunshine Coast Council has nominated Pinelands Drive Park at Beerwah as a suitable site. The park is largely undeveloped and has the potential to become a valuable resource for our wildlife carers. 

GMAN had a very successful meeting with the local residents at Pinelands Drive on November 19.

STOP HALL'S CREEK!

The recent public information forum held in Caloundra was well attended by a couple of hundred people who heard several speakers including Mayor Jamieson, Ministers Andrew Powell and McArdle, a town planning expert and representatives from Stocklands and OSCAR as well as an environmental expert with particular knowledge of the Pumicestone Passage.  Several GMAN members attended the forum and participated in the interesting Q and A session at the end of the evening.

• Following this forum and further discussions with SCEC and others, GMAN has taken a stand to support campaigns to Stop Halls Creek from development.  Why have we done this? There are several reasons and briefly they include the following concerns:·
  The Sunshine Coast community have previously rejected attempts to develop this area, and these rejections were heard and endorsed by our Council. Yet here we are again with the State Government (and the developer Stocklands) putting pressure on us to change our minds. So they have now painted ratepayers into a corner giving the community the choice between Halls Creek and Beerwah East. How many times do we have to tell them ‘No’ to Halls Creek before we are heard?·                    

• Halls Creek, if developed, will be the approximate size of Bundaberg, in other words a substantial city on its own. And it would sit alongside a considerable length of the Pumicestone Passage. This body of water is already in trouble and its water quality report card is gradually getting worse or at best not improving. Listed as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International, it supports about 350 different species of birds including migratory waders and shorebirds. This is in addition to dugongs, turtles etc. You can imagine what the impact of another 100,000 living on its shoreline will be. And that development would be following its northern neighbour, Caloundra South, a 50,000 population development already approved.·                     

• Another 16  to 25 kilometres of what is left of the interurban break between Caloundra South and Moreton Shire populations would disappear. Now it’s really looking like the future for our children and grandchildren could be an endless city from Noosa to Tweed Heads. Is this what we want for them?                     

• How would you rate the capacity of our road and rail transport systems at the moment? Are they good enough to cope with current loads let alone huge population increases like those approved or proposed? Do we have enough water? Are other essential infrastructure items being funded and planned for? GMAN doesn’t have any evidence to say ‘yes’ to any of these questions.·                     

• Whether you moved to the Sunshine Coast from elsewhere or were born and raised here, there is a good chance that, amongst the reasons you have stayed, is the lifestyle, character and natural environment which this place stills offers. So now imagine what impact another 100,000 neighbours in Halls Creek are going have on how we live,work and play.  

Beerwah:     August 21, September 4, 11, 18, 25