A statue of Queen Victoria has been beheaded in the latest in a series of attacks on historic monuments in Australia that honour British historical figures.
The statue in Geelong was cut down with an angle grinder in the early hours of Thursday morning, with the words ‘the colony can fall’ daubed in red paint on its plinth.
It follows similar attacks on multiple monuments to Captain James Cook in Melbourne and Sydney.
Former Liberal senator Eric Abetz said the protesters are destroying public property which was meant to recognise the ‘wonderful’ contributions Queen Victoria made.
A statue of Queen Victoria (pictured) in Geelong was cut down with an angle grinder in the early hours of Thursday morning
A slogan saying ‘the colony can fall’ was sprayed across the plinth the Queen Victoria statue stood on (pictured)
‘These imbeciles come along who clearly have no understanding of our history … You don’t obliterate history, if you do, that is when you start down the pathway of dictatorship and anarchy,’ the Chairman of the Australian Monarchist League Campaign Committee told radio 3AW.
The statue, which stood in East Geelong’s Eastern Park since 1912, was found laying on the ground by passers-by on Thursday morning, while the protesters filmed their crime and posted it online.
The red paint saying ‘the colony can fall’ covered over the words ‘Victoria, Queen and Empress, 1837-1901’.
The words ‘an empire on which the sun never sets’ were also written on the plinth.
Senior Constable Andrew Wallers told the Geelong Advertiser the protesters got up to the statue and ‘ground off we think one bolt’.
‘It appears they may have managed to rock it off and topple it over,’ he added.
Police are looking for CCTV and dashcam footage to try to find out who is responsible.
After statues of Captain Cook were targeted Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said: ‘It’s important, as people consider how to express their views – we have the right to express our views – to make sure that there’s respect for public property.
‘And also too, to remember that someone’s got to come in and clean up after these sorts of acts of vandalism.
‘That’s not a way to get your message across. There’s much more effective ways to do that, and that is through doing it peacefully and respectfully.’
There is a debate about the fate of a Captain Cook monument that was vandalised at Edinburgh Garden’s Rowe Street entrance in Fitzroy North, Melbourne on January 27.
City of Yarra councillor Stephen Jolly said replacing the statue would be a ‘waste of money’ and that it would almost certainly be pulled down again.
‘Even people who love Captain Cook, who love Australia Day, will see that repairing a statue that costs thousands to fix isn’t the most important thing to spend money on.
‘Residents want better bin services, more childcare services, cheaper swimming pools.
‘All of these things are a better way of spending the money (than) on a statue that we know is absolutely certain is going to get ripped down again,’ he said.
In Sydney, a mayor called for a recently vandalised statue of Captain Cook to be taken down because it is a symbol ‘of colonial oppression’.
The 114-year-old statue in Sydney’s eastern suburbs was hacked at for the second time in four years on February 15.
Randwick Council said it condemned ‘all acts of vandalism and had hired heritage stonework specialists to ‘repair the monument’.
A Captain Cook statue was sawed off and vandalised at St Kilda, in Melbourne, 24 hours before Australia Day
Vandals sawed off a statue at Cook’s Cottage in Fitzroy Gardens at Melbourne (pictured)
But Greens mayor Philipa Veitch said it was her ‘strong personal view’ that statues, such as those of Captain Cook, ‘should be taken down and removed from our civic spaces’.
‘They stand as a symbol and reminder of colonial oppression,’ she told the Southern Courier.
‘The statue should be removed out of respect for those residents who have been impacted and for those who would like to make tangible steps toward truth telling and genuine reconciliation.’
The mayor said it would be ‘more appropriate’ for the statue to be donated to the Maritime Museum.
Local police are investigating after the 114-year-old statue (pictured) in Sydney’s eastern suburbs was hacked at for the second time in four years on February 15
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk