Captain Cook statue cut down on eve of Australia Day, vandals brazenly share footage
The Captain James Cook statue in St Kilda is set to be rebuilt after it was cut down and its plinth defaced. See the footage.
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Statues of Captain James Cook and Queen Victoria will be rebuilt after they were vandalised on the eve of Australia Day.
The metal Captain Cook sculpture on Jacka Blvd, St Kilda, was cut from its stone base, with its plinth spray-painted with the words: “The colony will fall”.
Police say the statue was vandalised about 3.30am on Thursday.
Vandals filmed themselves in the act and then brazenly shared the footage, which was circulating on social media on Thursday.
THE COLONY WILL FALL.
— CRYM (@CRYM_Earth) January 25, 2024
CRYM has received this video from an anonymous source, with the following message.
This morning in Naarm, the Captain Cook statue was toppled and the Queen Victoria statue covered in blood.#AustraliaDay26Jan#CaptainCook#CRYMpic.twitter.com/cqfioGYLGq
The offenders used an angle grinder to take the statue down.
The statue, left by the vandals on the grass at the base of the plinth, was placed into the back of a truck and taken away.
Shattered glass was left at the base of the statue and one stone step was torn off.
The Queen Victoria Monument that stands on St Kilda Rd, near the Royal Botanical Gardens, was also sprayed with red paint.
The statue, unveiled on Empire Day in 1907, is more than 115 years old.
Cleaners were working to remove the red paint from the monument on Thursday morning.
City of Port Phillip councillor Marcus Pearl said the vandals “must be held to account for their actions”.
“This is not a solitary act of mischief. It’s a repeated pattern of disrespect, especially evident around Australia Day for the past six years,” he said.
“Resorting to vandalism is not only condemnable but also undermines the constructive discourse we strive for. Such acts blatantly disregard our community’s hard-fought principles of debate and democratic expression.”
Premier Jacinta Allan on Thursday said the St Kilda statue would be reinstated as soon as possible.
A second statue in Melbourne has been defaced overnight, 10 News First has learned.
— 10 News First Melbourne (@10NewsFirstMelb) January 24, 2024
The Queen Victoria statue in Queen Victoria Gardens - adjacent to the Royal Botanical Gardens - was covered in paint overnight, with staff on site this morning in a bid to clean the statue.
This… pic.twitter.com/kS9U2ohcMQ
“This sort of vandalism really has no place in our community and I want to signal today that we will be working with Council to repair and reinstate the statue in St Kilda that has been vandalised overnight,” she said.
The statue, estimated to cost $2,900, was unveiled in December 1914 and is thought to be the first major memorial to the British explorer in Victoria, according to the Captain Cook Society.
The sculpture was doused in red paint during an Australia Day protest in 2022.
Vandals also dumped pink paint on its head, scrawling “no pride” on its plinth in 2018, on the eve of Australia Day.
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