Public Land: Stocktake Sales! It’s end of financial year – what better time for governments to flog off some public land! The Victorian, Western Australian and Commonwealth governments all recently announced public land sales programs. But despite its public ownership, the selection of lands for sale and the sales processes are often anything but public. Earth Matters discusses the many problems with treating public land as a piggy bank rather than a community and environmental benefit. In Western Australia the state government is also considering a proposal for a private canal and marina development on public land at Point Peron, near Rockingham, which the community says was meant to stay as a public park after it was transferred by the Commonwealth to WA in 1964. And the UK government is currently proposing legislation that, according to activist and blogger Kerry-anne Mendoza, is mainly a mechanism for selling public land and making fracking easier.
