Bill Shorten says yes to Captain Cook statue being altered, but no to it being removed
BILL Shorten has given in to pressure from the left to change the inscription on the Captain Cook statue in Hyde Park, but has stopped short of calling for its removal.
NSW
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FEDERAL Labor leader BILL Shorten has caved in to left-wing demands for Hyde Park’s Captain Cook statue to be altered, but did not go as far as saying the monument to the great British explorer should be removed.
Last week ABC broadcaster Stan Grant claimed Australia has ignored its “monuments to hate” while America was pulling down controversial statues honouring Confederates, sparking a left-leaning activist push to either remove historical monuments or change the inscriptions on them.
Mr Shorten buckled yesterday, saying he would support a new plaque on the Cook statue — a move not supported by the NSW government or the Prime Minister — but not its removal.
“This country works best when we work together so an additional plaque on Captain Cook’s statue is fine by me,” Mr Shorten said. “Our history didn’t start when Captain Cook sailed into sight of Australia in 1770.”
The inscription on the Cook statue says the British explorer “discovered this territory, 1770” but there have been demands to replace it or add another to recognise indigenous Australians.
Police are investigating weekend vandalism of the statue which was defaced with “Change the Date” and “No Pride in Genocide” slogans, with Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison giving the anonymous culprit a spray.
“That idiot who did this on the weekend, he’s not doing anything to help indigenous young Australians. This was just an act of pure ego and vanity; it’s disgraceful,” he said yesterday.
Mr Shorten said the country didn’t “need to have an ‘us-and-them’ debate between Aboriginal Australians and other Australians”.
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Federal Labor MP Linda Burney, the first indigenous woman elected to the House of Representatives, urged councils to examine statues, plaques and monuments to check for “historical inaccuracies”.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who has ordered a City of Sydney indigenous panel to review the Cook statue and one of Lachlan Macquarie, said any changes should be the “result of very considered consultation between city government and state government”.
NSW Local Government Minister Gabrielle Upton and Treasurer Dominic Perrottet both support retaining statues of historical figures.
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