Vandals have defaced two historic monuments within the lead-up to 26 January regardless of efforts to guard towards focused assaults.
Heavy equipment was used to tear down the Pioneer monument in Melbourne’s oldest park, Flagstaff Gardens, in a single day earlier than the badly-damaged ruins have been vandalised, police consider.
The phrases “Dying to ‘Australia'” have been spray-painted on the plinth supporting the momunent, which was erected in 1871.
The five-metre tall sandstone obelisk marks the town’s first burial web site.
The close by Separation memorial, erected in 1950 to commemorate the founding of the Victorian colony a century earlier, was equally defaced.
“This type of behaviour is not going to and can’t be tolerated in Melbourne,” Melbourne’s lord mayor Nicholas Reece instructed ABC radio on Thursday morning.
He added the incident occurred regardless of cameras and fences being put in to guard statues and monuments within the lead as much as Australia Day, 26 January.
Reece described the vandals as “idiots”, including they failed to grasp the historic significance of the monuments they focused.
Comparable vandalism offences have occurred within the lead-up to Australia Day lately, usually concentrating on websites devoted to the town’s colonial previous.
In 2025, vandals toppled a statue of Captain Cook dinner on the entrance of Edinburgh Gardens in Fitzroy North throughout the January lengthy weekend.
Council staff take away the remnants of a Captain Cook dinner statue in St Kilda, Melbourne in January 2024. Supply: AAP / AAPIMAGE
The Metropolis of Yarra voted to scrap the statue in Could 2025 because of the excessive price of its maintenance, given it was repeatedly focused by vandals.
Reece mentioned the value of repairing the Flagstaff Gardens monuments was not but clear, however insisted they might be reinstated.
“We can not permit it to be the case that when statutes (and) memorials are destroyed … that’s rewarded by permitting it to proceed,” he mentioned.
Against the law scene has been established on the web site as police examine.
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