Hi, We live on the Sunshine Coast and in my opinion it's too far to commute to the CBD, but lots of people do. You are looking at 1-2 hours into the city at rush hour. We are in Caloundra, so relativley south in the sunshine coast. But there is the train, from Landsborough the train takes 1hr 20mins to Roma Street Station (Brisbane CBD) and is very frequent. Again, in my eyes it's too far, but then I don't like to commute.
The Sunshine COast is a great place to live, esp with little ones, but that's my opinion and that's why we live here. As someone has already said you can't make that decision till you have been there. Over the last 8 years we have lived here, Melbourne, back in the UK and back here to the Sunshine Coast. So it's taken us a while to realize this is where we want to be.