On Israeli settlements
Jock Webb writes: Re. “On Dave Sharma” (Monday)
The Australian & Jewish Affairs Council is being highly disingenuous or even deceptive in its statements. While it might be unfair to attack the ambassador, the idea that there have been no settlements since 1999 is rubbish, as a quick perusal of this link will show. No legal ones, maybe, but many many settlements stealing land and protected by the IDF. As a long term admirer of the Jewish people and a former admirer of Israel, I find this letter detestable in its legalistic nonsense.
The Palestinians have a right to their land at least as good as the Zionists unless we accept that the old testament is a perpetual title. But then Israel was stolen from the Palestinians too, surely?
On the ‘deep state’
This raises an interesting question. Which of the 5 ages has Trump placed himself and the USA in? I believe the answer, in Toynbee terms, lies in the last word in Trumps campaign, Make America great again.
On housing affordability
Dr Philip Dawson writes: Re. “How to solves housing affordability literally overnight” (Monday)
Adam mentions some good points but omits a problem affecting ordinary people and small business who don’t buy Vaucluse mansions for $60 million, but have to pay over $200,000 for a block to build on in rural and regional areas — even in remote WA and QLD mining towns, which may well have a limited life. The reason is land availability. In my area, third grade farmland sells for $500 an acre. Give it a building and subdivision zoning and before any services it sells for $250,000 for an eight acre block 20 minutes drive from the centre of Launceston. I suggest a moratorium on subdividing ANY first grade farmland ANYWHERE, and open zoning for the remaining land within a 50 year planning area around our cities (like Texas and other southern US states do). Then if the farmer keeps farming they only pay farming rates and are not forced to subdivide by high rates from rezoning. If they do subdivide, then the land is rated residential.
The open zoning could include various categories including commercial and light industrial with the usual restrictions on heavy industrial areas. It is estimated developers charge some $40,000 per block to put in the “services”. Due to a monopoly situation this figure is padded, so open this up to competition too, and it should drop by perhaps half. Furthermore all Aussie councils, even those in remote mining towns, wont allow you to live on a caravan on your block for more than three months while you build your house. Allow 2 years in most areas so someone can build their own house while holding down a job to pay for materials. Without any of the tax changes mentioned in the article this would drop the prices of new blocks for building on (the high price of which is at the heart of the shortage) to under $30,000 including the services. Kit homes can be purchased for around $40,000 so we could see the situation in the US Midwest where new homes can be bought for $US70,000 making housing affordable to all with a job. This may not drop the price of a vacant block in Vaucluse (if there are any), but who cares, it would drop the price on the outskirts of all our major cities, which is where the problem is. No one is building much because a new house in the sticks is more expensive than an older house in a closer in suburb. By all means tax the ultra wealthy, but don’t advocate taxing the family home of the poor. I suggest 0 capital gains or land tax on properties under $500,000 ( more than Australia’s median house price).
Indeed Jock, the Israelites did steal the land they call Israel. The Bible (as reported in Wikipedia)says so:
“The term Canaanites serves as an ethnic catch-all term covering various indigenous populations—both settled and nomadic-pastoral groups—throughout the regions of the southern Levant or Canaan. It is by far the most frequently used ethnic term in the Bible, which commonly describes Canaanites as a people which, in the Book of Joshua are marked down on a list as one of the nations to be exterminated, and later as a group which the Israelites had annihilated.”