R.S.L. head attacks Japanese resettlement

Press, 3 February 1987, Page 6

R.S.L. head attacks Japanese resettlement

NZPA-AAP Melbourne

The outspoken president of the Victorian Returned Services League, Bruce Ruxton, has delivered a scathing attack against a proposed Japanese retirement -village in .Queensland; ;• Mr Ruxton said the planned retirement village for up to 5000 Japanese pensioners on Brisbane’s southern outskirts was “absolutely outrageous.”

“We want them like a hole in the head,” he said.

"Here we are now going to get five or six thousand aged Japanese

— it would be interesting to see some of their war records.”

Mr Ruxton said almost all Australian veterans would be horrified and disgusted if the retirement village went ahead.

“We don’t want 5000 Vietnamese in one heap, we don’t want 5000 Africans in one heap, let alone aged Japanese,” he said.

The retirement village has been proposed by the developers, Hancock Brothers, as part of a project which would, also include residential areas, a business park, high tech industrial zone, resort

hotel and entertainment, ; sport and recreation' areas. The company owns 950 ha site on Brisbane’s southern outskirts. The site has also been linked with a Japanese proposal for' a : * multi-bil-lion dollar futuristic town somewhere in Australia. Mr Ruxton, a supporter of the White Australia Policy and South Africa’s apartheid system, has at traded regular news media attention during cent months.

Earlier this month he -j criticised South Africa’s’ Archbishop Desmond TutU.