River advisory boss Nick Hluszko fires up over boat crowd ‘slumming it’ in Noosa

Houseboats in the Noosa River are squarely in the sights of upset Noosa locals.

The number of houseboats and other vessels crowding the Noosa River has been an issue for decades.

Freeloaders living on vessels in the Noosa River and turning the already crowded waterway into “floating favelas” or shanty towns, are squarely in the sights of upset Noosa locals.

Noosa River Stakeholder Advisory Committee chairman Nick Hluszko had a scathing assessment of up to 200 boats he said are doing the wrong thing.

“The thing that concerns a lot of people is this whole move to live-aboards,” Mr Hluszko.

“You think about it, you’ve go pay $20 0r 30k for an old dilapidated houseboat, crane it into the river, it’s a cheap way of living,” he said.

“There’s really no controls over that, anyone can come along plonk a boat in the river, anywhere you like for any length of time and that’s it.”

Mr Hluszko said the end result was “a mini Hong Kong Harbour”.

“I call it a floating favela,” he said.

Demanding action on Noosa's freeloading live-aboards on the Noosa River is Nick Hluszko.

“I can’t jump in my car with a s**t old cab and go up the beach and go, ‘you know what I might camp here for a couple of years’ – you can’t just do that,” he said.

“It’s not fair and reasonable, why would we treat our river any differently?”

Mr Hluszko and his committee have presented their suggestions to tackle these overcrowded eyesores and safety hazards still blighting the river to Maritime Safety Queensland.

In the 30 years Mr Hluszko has lived on Noosa North Shore, he has seen a proliferation of vessels that have no right to be there.

“I used to look upstream and I could see three or our boats around Goat Island, now you can’t see past the boats to Goat Island,” he said.

“This ain’t no dumping ground.”

The committee wants the present permanent registered boat moorings capped at 105 and a short stay limit imposed on visiting vessels.

“We’re saying don’t add any more moorings, we don’t need any more,” Mr Hluszko said.

This houseboat the Vincent was removed after it sunk in the Noosa River by Maritime Safety Queensland as part of its War on Wrecks program to declutter the state's waterways.

“We’ll look at it as people die and there’s natural attrition and everything else you can look at repurposing them.

“We don’t have any official visitor moorings in the river anywhere, and maybe some of those (105 moorings) go across to help tourism.”

Mr Hluszko said the committee was also concerned by the number of boats scouring the river bed.

“What we’re saying is look, the rest of the world has moved on to eco-friendly moorings which fundamentally don’t cause any damage, and let’s convert them all over time,” Mr Hluszko said.

He said much of their proposals can be implemented under existing Queensland maritime safety and waterways management legislation, while the provision of full-time Maritime Safety Queensland staff resources has already seen “positive outcomes”.

Maritime Safety Queensland GM Angus Mitchell said the local proposals will be worked through before they are put out for public feedback.

The stakeholder advisory committee was set up by Noosa Council and Maritime Safety Queensland.