Vic: Historic cemetery included in Pt Nepean land sale
By Royal Abbott
MELBOURNE, Aug 22 AAP - An historic cemetery is being put up for sale along with 90hectares of former defence land at Point Nepean, south-east of Melbourne.
The cemetery, close to a former quarantine camp in Ticonderoga Bay, has about 100 graves,68 belonging to passengers who arrived in 1852 aboard the immigrant ship after which thebay is named.
Democrats Senator Lyn Allison said the federal government knew about the cemetery butplanned to do nothing by way of protection.
Defence Minister Robert Hill told Senator Allison that once the land was sold, thecemetery would fall under the jurisdiction of the state Heritage Act.
The federal government has received 23 expressions of interest from parties wantingto buy the valuable parcel of former defence land close to the Port Phillip Bay heads.
Prime Minister John Howard has defended the sale, saying the federal government hadalready gifted about 65 per cent of the site to local and state governments.
But the sale plans have angered the state government, which is considered likely toplace a protective order over the cemetery.
Last week Senator Allison discovered the widely-opposed plan to sell the block wouldallow the beach and foreshore to become private property.
"Now we have discovered the federal government is selling a cemetery on the Flinderspeninsula which - as the historic landing place for many new Victorians - has importantcultural significance," she said.
"This latest revelation is an outrage and further evidence that the government's primaryconcern is how much money it can raise from the sale," Senator Allison said.
Community activist Kate Baillieu said Point Nepean was in danger of being barred tothe public, and said the federal government should accept the community plan to keep PointNepean land in public ownership.
AAP ra/dk/was/de
KEYWORD: NEPEAN
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