Two monuments symbolising Australia’s colonial past were damaged by protesters ahead of an increasingly polarising national holiday that marks the anniversary of British settlement.
A statue in Melbourne of British naval officer James Cook, who in 1770 charted Sydney’s coast, was sawn off at the ankles on Thursday, while a monument of Queen Victoria in the city’s Queen Victoria Gardens was doused in red paint.
Images posted on social media showed the body of the Cook statue lying on the ground with the words “The colony will fall” spray-painted on its stone plinth.
Protesters covered the same statue with red paint in January 2022.
Australia Day, held each year on January 26, commemorates the anniversary of British settlement in 1788.
Argument rages in the country over how history should remember a fleet of 11 British ships, carrying a human cargo of convicts, arriving in present-day Sydney on January 26 1788.
For many Indigenous activists, Australia Day is known as Invasion Day as it marked the beginning of a sustained period of discrimination and dispossession of Indigenous peoples without the negotiation of a treaty.
The lack of such a treaty puts Australia out of step with comparable countries, including the US, Canada and New Zealand.
“We understand and acknowledge the complex and diverse views surrounding Australia Day,” said Heather Cunsolo, council mayor of Port Phillip where the statue is situated.
“We can’t condone, however, the vandalism of a public asset where costs will be ultimately borne by ratepayers,” she added.
Captain Cook’s statue has been taken away and workers removed the feet from the plinth.
Victorian state premier Jacinta Allan said the government would support the local authorities to repair and reinstate the statue.
Police said they were investigating both incidents.
A referendum proposal to create an advocacy committee to offer advice to Parliament on policies that affect Indigenous people — the nation’s most disadvantaged ethnic minority — was resoundingly rejected by Australia’s voters in October last year.
