Safety fears and sore eyes: State seeks fix for popular waterway woes

Beloved by well-off or water-mad locals and tourists from around the state and country alike, the Noosa River is many things to many people — not to mention the original Kabi Kabi inhabitants.

But a lack of rules and growing number of powered, paddling and stationary punters has sparked safety concerns and fears the popular waterway has descended into an “unregulated parking lot”.

The Noosa River serves as a backdrop for everything from houseboats and holiday parks to fishing spots and multimillion-dollar homes.Credit: File

Now, the state government is poised to step in. Consultation has been opened across the busy summer period on proposed water speed caps and boat anchoring limits.

Transport Minister Mark Bailey said managing the situation alongside important environmental sensitivities had become “challenging”.

“We’ve also had reports of unsafe behaviour, which has prompted this push for a safer and more sustainable waterway for all,” Bailey said in a statement.

“Proposed regulations aim to improve safety for boat owners, people using small non-power crafts, and swimmers.”

The river’s roughly nine-kilometre reach winds from the mouth near Noosa’s Main Beach past multimillion-dollar properties, stand-up paddle, boat and jetski hire outlets, the yacht and rowing club, and marina.

It then passes parts of the Great Sandy National Park, and the Tewantin ferry crossing, before opening up into Lake Cootharaba.

The popular fishing, camping and sailing spot is just one in a region favoured by holiday goers or sea-changers from southern states. A region whose reputation as a rich-lister’s playground the pandemic also did little to dull.

A further 200,000 residents are expected to call the broader Sunshine Coast region home by 2041. Since 2011, Noosa and its surrounds have grown about 25 per cent.

Against this backdrop, community groups have lamented the river’s decline into a “permanent parking lot for more and more boats, many of them providing cheap holidays for their out-of-town owners”.

Other locals have raised concerns about “derelict houseboats” left to sit near a key conservation site and along sensitive riverbanks.

In 2015, the council even set up a “community jury” to consider the issue of river management. But progress stalled.

Unlike many other coastal hubs, the Noosa River lacks restrictions on where, and for how long, people can drop anchor.

Without such limits, it would “inevitably keep growing as an unregulated parking lot,” Noosa Parks Association member Michael Gloster wrote in April.

The fresh consultation follows past efforts by Maritime Safety Queensland to seek feedback on a permanent six-knot (about 11km/h) speed limit zone — a measure boaties remain not too fond of.

The zone has since been altered in the new proposals, now extending further upstream but limited to the river’s edges where new no-anchor areas are also suggested.

The consultation also proposes limiting vessels to anchoring for 28 consecutive days in a financial year. Feedback is open until mid-January.

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