Gazette joins petitioner’s campaign for safe, welcoming, well-managed parks
Nambour deserves public spaces that are safe, welcoming and well managed. Helen Tagg deserves our support.
Helen Tagg has brought clarity to complex issues and helped the community find its voice regarding safety issues.
by Cameron Outridge,
editor Sunshine Valley Gazette
The Sunshine Valley Gazette will formally join local petitioner and safety advocate Helen Tagg in calling for clearly defined safe zones around playgrounds and schools in Nambour.
This safety measure, as advocated by her group Nambour Now is overdue and reflects the expectations of families and residents who want safe, predictable public spaces for children.
For many months, residents have consistently raised concerns about entrenched encampments, escalating antisocial behaviour, discarded needles, visible drug use, aggressive incidents and ongoing damage to parks and natural spaces.
Families report that they no longer feel comfortable taking children to certain playgrounds, and parents routinely describe situations where they have been forced to leave out of concern for safety.
These issues have grown more visible and more frequent, particularly in areas designed for children. More than 1600 people have added their names to Mrs Tagg’s petition, which has brought structure and clarity to an issue many residents have felt but struggled to voice.
Her core argument is simple: children should not be exposed to avoidable risk and councils have a responsibility to set boundaries that protect them.
The Gazette supports this position.
Importantly, safe zones do not come at the expense of compassion. The safety of children and the dignity of people experiencing homelessness are not competing values. They can and must coexist.
A balanced system maintains the intended purpose of children’s parks and schools, while ensuring people sleeping rough are supported in ways that do not place added strain on these areas. Clear boundaries reduce conflict, reduce stigma and encourage more predictable pathways into support.
The difficulty in Nambour has not been a lack of goodwill, but a lack of clear, consistent management.
Council’s own guidelines, allow relocation when public safety or amenity is compromised. Yet without clearly defined safe zones, families have been left navigating risks they cannot reasonably assess.
This gap between policy and practice has resulted in entrenched encampments beside play equipment, increased conflict in shared spaces and a growing sense among residents that their concerns are being ignored. Mrs Tagg’s voice brings clarity and nuance to a space often overshadowed by polarising ideologies and political opinions.
It is also deeply concerning that Council quietly withdrew its own staff and BushCare volunteers from several parks due to threatening behaviour, while the public, unaware and unprotected, continued using those same spaces. If trained workers cannot operate safely, expecting parents and children to do so is unreasonable.
At the heart of Mrs Tagg’s work is a vision that extends far beyond the introduction of safe zones. She is calling for a realistic, stigma-reducing response to homelessness that genuinely serves the whole community.
This includes safer temporary locations instead of flood zones, clearer expectations about how public spaces are used and consistent management that reduces conflict and protects vulnerable people.
It also requires a long-term housing strategy supported by all levels of government, because without stable pathways out of homelessness, both rough sleepers and the wider community remain stuck in a cycle that cannot be resolved through short-term measures alone.
She argues that appropriate management reduces stigma, not increases it, and that failing to manage public spaces widens divides at a time when the community needs to be unified. This is just one step toward stability for a community left dealing with an increasing social issue.
It seems clear that, up until now, Council has been shackled by an internal ideology of tolerance for homelessness above all else. While well-intentioned, this approach becomes misplaced when it overrides basic child safety.
Compassion can not mean allowing unmanaged encampments beside playgrounds. It can not mean tolerating conditions where discarded needles appear near play equipment. When the safety of children is at stake, boundaries must be clear.
As a masthead, the Gazette will continue reporting on this issue, seeking transparency around park management and publishing the experiences of parents, residents, businesspeople and advocates. We will stand behind the petitioner and safety advocate so she is not left alone to carry the burden of ensuring Nambour’s parks and playgrounds are safe.
Our stance is straightforward. Children deserve safe places to play, and vulnerable people deserve dignity and appropriate support.
Establishing safe zones is a practical, common-sense step within a broader vision for a safer and more compassionate community.
Nambour deserves public spaces that are safe, welcoming and well managed. Helen Tagg deserves our support.
As Cr Johnston says in this week’s Gazette: “People want a fair outcome, but they also want to feel safe. We have to find a workable middle ground for everyone.”
How to help
• Sign the petition at www.change.org/savenambour
• Join the Nambour Now community advocacy group at https://facebook.com/groups/nambournow
• Keep an eye out for the public meeting in the new year.