A bronze statue of Captain James Cook has been hacked off its plinth in a Melbourne park,prompting a police investigation.
The sculpture of the British explorer at Cooks’ Cottage in East Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens was cut off between 5pm on Sunday and 7am on Monday,causing it to fall to the ground.
A video posted to an anonymous social media account shows masked vandals using an angle grinder to saw the statue off at its ankles,before pushing it over.
The words “the colony will fall” were painted beside the fallen statue,according to the account.
“Yet another monument to the imperialist James Cook has been felled in so-called Melbourne. Rumour has it that this was the last remaining Cook statue in the city,” the post on Instagram says.
“Monuments such as this only serve to prop up the narrative that enables so-called Australia’s continuing theft and desecration of land and life,and to legitimise its ongoing violence.
“This narrative is as hollow as a monument to a long dead coloniser who met his just fate,being speared by first nations warriors in Hawaii.”
According to the Captain Cook Society,the statue was sculpted by Marc Clark in 1973,and was owned privately before it was gifted to the City of Melbourne in 1996. The sculpture was moved into the garden at Cooks’ Cottage the following year.