Rioters who turned Melbourne into a battleground have left dozens of white supremacist stickers in their wake.
A non-protesting Melburnian was disgusted to find stickers in nearby Westgate Park the next morning reading ‘Australia for the white man’.
‘If you have a spare five minutes and are close to Westgate Park, It’s absolutely littered with this,’ he wrote online.
The racist sticker the Melbourne resident found in Westgate Park (pictured) was one of about 30 they removed on the route of the anti-lockdown rallies in the city
He ripped off one of them on video and scrunched it up, explaining he and friends found and removed at least 30 of them from around the park.
People commenting on the post said they had also seen the stickers littering streets and parks in Melbourne for weeks.
‘I work in parks and have been cleaning up crap like this for months… but people are quick to report it or help clean too. Thanks for helping,’ one wrote.
‘Thanks for sharing I’ll be on the look out for these now. I’m so used to seeing parts of the city sticker bombed that I don’t always take notice of what they say. I will now so that I can tear them down,’ another added.
‘Ironic people supporting right wing nationalism talk about how Australia used to be and traditional values but tend to forget past generations spilled blood fighting Nazi ideology,’ a third said.
Other commenters said they spotted the stickers on the Maribyrnong River Trail and in St Kilda, Northcote, Thornbury, Kensington, and Flemington.
Riot police officers form a wall as they wait for protesting construction workers on the West Gate Bridge on Tuesday afternoon
Thousands of construction workers are pictured protesting on the West Gate Bridge on Tuesday afternoon as the demonstration moved out of the CBD
On Wednesday, the third day the lawless mob has descended on the streets of Melbourne, thousands marched on the city’s war memorial where they set up camp, using the sacred site as a shield from which to taunt police.
The protesters, demanding an end to compulsory vaccines for the construction industry, as well as a list of other demands, swarmed Victoria’s Shrine of Remembrance.
The memorial was built to honour ANZAC soldiers who served in World War I.
Some protesters were decked out in body armour ready for confrontations with police their to enforce Covid public health orders that prevent gatherings.
The mob shouted at officers not to arrest them out of ‘respect for the ANZACS’ and sang the national anthem.
Police in riot gear were prepared to fire tear gas to disperse the mob but an hour into the protest had held off and instead told the crowd to disperse or be arrested.
Cops wearing riot gear and holding shields surrounded the protesters during the tense stand off on Wednesday afternoon at the war memorial
Protesters set up camp at Melbourne’s war memorial using the sacred site as a shield so police wouldn’t fire tear gas on them out of respect for fallen Anzacs
Only a small group left with police then moving in on the remaining group and arresting them one by one.
Many, including Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, said though there were some legitimate tradies among the protesters, the group had been cop-opted by far right-wing and conspiracy theory groups.
‘I think there were some people there who you would say were from the building industry,’ Mr Andrews said.
‘There were others who were not from the building industry. They’re not there to protests, they’re there for a fight, pretend to be protesting. They’re from many different backgrounds.’
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley on Tuesday defended the late-night decision to close construction in locked-down Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Mitchell Shire and the Surf Coast.
An official government statement announcing the blanket shutdown, effective at midnight, was not issued until 10pm on Monday.
Riot police are seen outside the Victoria’s Parliament House during Tuesday’s protest, which came a day after violent demonstrators damaged the CFMEU head office in Melbourne’s CBD
A protester stands by a flare at Tuesday’s protest as thousands of tradesmen wearing hi-vis rallied against lockdown measures and compulsory vaccines for the industry
Mr Foley said the government had for weeks warned the sector could be shut down due to outbreaks linked to the predominantly young and mobile construction workforce.
‘The public health team was left with no choice but to hit the pause button and continue working with the sector over these next two weeks to improve compliance,’ he told reporters.
There are 337 cases directly linked to 154 construction sites, he said.
Of those 239 cases are linked to sites in metropolitan Melbourne, including nine people who live in regional Victoria.
Industrial Relations Minister Tim Pallas said inspectors visited thousands of worksites during the past week and about half were failing to comply with health directions.
‘Broad-scale non-compliance across the industry was constituting a threat to public health in the most dramatic of terms,’ he said.
Both Mr Foley and Mr Pallas have condemned the violent protests, with the former describing it as ‘an insult to every Victorian who has been doing the right thing’.