Passionate Australians wanting to keep the country’s historical statues in place took to Hyde Park in protest, despite few threats to remove them.
Responding to the statues that were vandalised last weekend, 60 people marched from Lachlan Macquaire statue at Hyde Park, Sydney, to the Captain Cook statue on Saturday.
Party for Freedom president Nick Folkes told Daily Mail Australia vandalising the statues was poor taste and they wanted to bring people together to celebrate Australia’s history rather than ridicule it.
Passionate Australians wanting to keep the country’s historical statues in place marched in Hyde Park (pictured Saturday)
Run by Party for Freedom, the march took place through Hyde Park despite anyone threatening to remove the statues
The march was in response to the vandalised statues last weekend where 60 people marched from Lachlan Macquaire statue to the Captain Cook statue (pictured)
Party for Freedom president Nick Folkes told Daily Mail Australia the graffiti hit statues was done out of poor taste
‘We don’t support re-writing history, we respect our colonial heritage and no nation is perfect,’ Mr Folkes said.
‘The lefties, they’ve lost the plot … they want to see a race war … we’ve see what happened in the Islamic State, there are parallels there.’
Last week former prime minister Tony Abbott claimed statues of Captain James Cook would be torn down if Bill Shorten became prime minister, Fairfax Media reported.
‘You can just imagine all the statues of Captain Cook being taken down, all the statues of Governor Phillip being taken down … [it would be] political correctness on steroids,’ Mr Abbott told 2GB’s Ben Fordham.
Shouting ‘save the statues’ throughout the march, Mr Folkes said Australians should be proud of their heritage because you can’t change the past.
‘You know, should we start knocking down Roman statues because they kept slaves,’ he said.
‘Knocking down statues won’t achieve anything.’
The people in the march used flags including the Union Jack (far left) and a neo-nazi flag (black with white circle in centre)
‘We don’t support re-writing history, we respect our colonial heritage and no nation is perfect,’ Mr Folkes told Daily Mail
The march took place Saturday (pictured), a week after the same statues were targeted by vandals with graffiti
March was aimed at drawing attention to historical statues (pictured) which Mr Folkes said the country should be proud of
People involved in the march walked with a showcase of flags, including a neo-nazi flag and the Eureka Flag (pictured)
The protesters took to waving a variety of flags through the park including a Eureka Flag (blue with white cross and stars), a neo-nazi flag (black with white circle) and Australian flags.
The march comes a week after anti-Australia Day graffiti was spray painted onto several historical statues across Hyde Park including Captain Cook, Lachlan Macquarie, Queen Elizabeth and ANZAC Memorial.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week condemned the ‘cowardly act’ and compared it to the behaviour of Joseph Stalin.
‘After all contention and controversy enliven history… Yes, there are many dark chapters of injustice, hardship and cruelty,’ Mr Turnbull wrote on a Facebook post.
‘But we do not advance the clear eyed telling of the truth as we see it today, by trying to obliterate the reality of the different perspectives of times past.’
Statues (pictured) were spray-painted with political slogans referring to debate over the date of Australia Day last weekend
A statue of former NSW governor Lachlan Macquarie (left) was targeted by vandals as was a Captain Cook statue (right)
Mr Folkes (pictured) told Daily Mail Australia he was sick of people ridiculing the country’s past, admitting while the history is not perfect a lot of good came from British settlement
The graffiti attacks came just days after Indigenous broadcaster Stan Grant called for the Captain Cook statue inscription to change.
Mr Folkes told Daily Mail Australia he was sick of people ridiculing the country’s past, admitting while the history is not perfect a lot of good came from British settlement.
‘It’s sad it’s come to this,’ he said.
‘We’re going to follow this debate in Australia and see where it goes.’