By Cassandra Morgan and Hannah Hammoud
A monument memorialising Melbourne’s controversial founder, John Batman, has been toppled, an Anzac memorial covered in blood-red paint and a citizenship ceremony stage vandalised on the eve of January 26.
Vandals targeted the bluestone Batman monument, next to the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne’s CBD, ahead of Australia Day on Sunday.
A security guard covers up the destroyed monument to John Batman at Queen Victoria Market.Credit: Simon Schluter
Police were called to reports it had been damaged about 2.20am on Saturday.
The monument was severed in half, its top spilling out onto concrete and dirt beside it.
The vandalised war memorial in Parkville.Credit: Bev Noonan
North of the market, locals woke on Saturday morning to find the Parkville War Memorial on Royal Parade covered in red paint, with the words “land back” and “the colony will fall” written on it.
Parkville residents were shocked at the attack on a war memorial that had nothing to do with Australia Day.
A stage intended for an Australia Day citizenship ceremony at Ringwood was also vandalised about 2am on Saturday, and two ceremonial flags were stolen.
Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece confirmed the council was aware of the Batman and Parkville incidents and had ramped up security – including installing temporary CCTV – around “high-risk targets”.
“Defacing and damaging city assets will not be tolerated in Melbourne,” Reece said.
“We are actively working with Victoria Police to track down these offenders, and we have shared CCTV footage to assist in investigations.”
The Batman monument was severed in half.Credit: Simon Schluter
A Victoria Police spokeswoman confirmed they were investigating the attack on the Batman monument.
Erected in 1881, it is notable for deliberately writing Aboriginal people out of Melbourne’s history. Its original inscription refers to the city in the mid-1830s as “land then unoccupied”, according to the City of Melbourne.
A plaque was added to the monument in 1992 acknowledging Aboriginal people as the traditional occupiers of the land, and then replaced with another, more strongly worded plaque recognising First Nations people in 2004.
More than two dozen locations around Melbourne are named after Batman, including parks, streets, avenues, a hill and a railway station.
But many people have begun to look less than kindly on Batman’s role as colonist, including his involvement in the murder of Aboriginal people in Tasmania in the early 1800s.
Long-time resident Bev Noonan, 85, was on a morning walk about 9am and discovered the attack on the Parkville War Memorial on Royal Parade.
After calling Parkville Association president Robert Moore to report the vandalism, “she was in tears”, he told this masthead.
“It was very shocking because we use that memorial for our local Anzac Day ceremony, and have done so for many years.”
A council cleaning crew turned up within 45 minutes, and Moore reported the matter to a local police officer, who was himself a veteran.
Residents upset at the vandalism say the Parkville War Memorial has nothing to do with Australia Day.Credit: Bev Noonan
“His reaction was the same as anybody else I spoke to this morning, this kind of sheer shock and amazement that they would select this monument because it’s a monument for the dead who looked after people in the First World War,” Moore said.
The vandals’ message was about colonisation, and they clearly did not understand the memorial and history, he said.
“That seriously is the sad thing … some of the people walking past were furious. It doesn’t help what should be a very good cause.”
An RSL spokesperson said: “While we understand there is a community debate around Australia Day, Anzac monuments have nothing to do with it. We condemn all of these attacks.”
Noonan said she was horrified to see the vandalised memorial and condemned the act as “just so wrong”.
“It’s got nothing to do with Australia Day,” Noonan said.
“People gave their lives to fight in the war, and this is a memorial to the people who gave their lives. It doesn’t make sense to me at all.”
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan expressed frustration over the latest acts of vandalism against statues.
“It’s disgraceful. I condemn it.”
She committed to working with local councils to have the damaged statues reinstated.
Victoria Police is also investigating the vandalism of a stage intended for an Australia Day citizenship ceremony at Ringwood.
Paint reading “the colony will fall”, “you are on stolen land”, “abolish Australia”, and “f--- the colony” coated the walls of marquees, where dozens of chairs were set up.
Federal member for Deakin Michael Sukkar said he was “disgusted and disappointed” by the vandalism, which Maroondah City Council staff were cleaning ahead of Sunday’s ceremony.
State upper house MP Nick McGowan, who represents the North-Eastern Metropolitan Region, condemned the “senseless and criminal acts” of vandalism.
“I am sickened by what I see here at Ringwood Lake. A place of ceremony and celebration, welcoming 80 new immigrants who have chosen Australia to call home, has been turned into a crime scene,” he said.
“Victorians have had a gutful of these acts of vandalism and terror.”
The vandalism attacks came after police launched an investigation into the beheading of the statues of two former prime ministers, Paul Keating and Kevin Rudd, at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens in the early hours of Thursday.
The name plates of another 18 former Australian prime ministers’ bronze busts were damaged, with police still hunting for the culprits as of Friday.
One of the prime minister statues covered up after it was vandalised at Ballarat.Credit: Justin McManus
Police estimated the damage to be more than $140,000, with each of the stolen heads valued about $50,000.
Port Phillip Council has invested about $15,000 in security measures to protect its oft-defaced Captain Cook statue at Catani Gardens in St Kilda.
The statue, which was sawn off at the ankles on January 25 last year, is under 24/7 guard ahead of Australia Day and the council’s mobile CCTV trailer is stationed nearby, streaming to St Kilda police station.
Police urged anyone with information about any of the vandalism to contact Crime Stoppers.
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