Crown Land
IN response to reader Rosina Beaumont’s concerns about building on Crown Land (Letters, May 5), I ask: Do you live in a house, apartment, unit or townhouse built on land? Then you live on what was once Crown Land. Setting aside discussions of ownership pre-European arrival, all land was originally Crown Land, granted or sold for development by settlers, farmers, etc to build the colony and the state. There is no date beyond which Crown Land suddenly became development-free. Governments around the world can and do legitimately make land available for development either by grant or by sale.
Down the wrong way
THE Federal Government is rumoured to be giving tax breaks to small craft brewers ( Mercury, May 4) to offset an advantage the big three national brewers have over them. Why then has the Hodgman Government done the opposite and gifted $1 million of taxpayers’ money to Cascade Brewery for developing craft beers? Local craft brewers must be choking on their lager.
Miserly and mean
SENATOR Duniam’s attempt to dismiss Kym Goodes’s comment on housing funding does not erase the fact the amount to be spent over four years is miserly and mean compared to that being thrown at the Pork Barrel Roads in Braddon (Letters, May 12). The Affordable Housing Agreement is a dud. We give more money back to the feds in this scheme than they give in real money.
Ratepayers liable
IT is worrying to find Chambroad Petrochemical’s excellent idea of a hospitality training school embedded with a hotel and apartment complex ( Mercury, May 11) will not only be built on a contaminated site due to its previous use as a railway yard
Sad day
THE opening of the US Embassy building site in Jerusalem should be condemned as highly inappropriate for a holy place held dear to all three great religions. For Palestinians, the timing of such a move is especially upsetting as today, May 15, is a day of sorrow, known as the Nakba (translated as the catastrophe). This year marks 70th anniversary of when 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly removed from their homes by Zionist militias. Some fled, still carrying their keys thinking they would return after a few weeks. Many refugees settled in neighbouring countries and 70 years on many are living in dire circumstances still waiting to return. Under UN Resolution 194, the Palestinian refugees and their descendants have a right to return to their homeland, a right that under Israeli law is afforded to all Jews in the diaspora who have a tenuous link with the Jewish state.
There are many of us participating in commemoration vigils. Many in the Jewish community who oppose what their Government is doing will join us. We support Palestinian demands for an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories, an end to the illegal 10-year blockade of Gaza, a cessation of illegal settlements and demolition of Palestinian homes, a stop to the colonisation of East Jerusalem and a release of Palestinian prisoners.