City of Yarra in Melbourne to remove Catptain Cook statue after repeat vandalism
A Melbourne council will permanently remove a Captain Cook memorial from a public park.
Yarra City Council announced on Wednesday it would not restore the bronze and granite monument to avoid further repair costs caused by repeat vandalism at the site.
The statue has been missing from Fitzroy's Edinburgh Gardens since January 2024, when it was last vandalised.
It was toppled and graffitied on the Australia Day long weekend, and is currently in council storage, The Guardian reported.
It would cost $15,000 to repair the memorial and put it back on site, according to a costing report. The council said this cost was not justifiable.
More than $100,000 has been spent over the past 25 years to maintain the statue.
The report described the statue as of 'little or no significance'. It stated the site was 'contentious within the community and Cook is a contested figure in relation to First Peoples'.
Speaking on Wednesday, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said she was 'disappointed' the City of Yarra had been forced to make the decision.
'I think we have seen enough … we have seen enough division,' Ms Allan said.
'It is disappointing if Yarra have made the decision based on those reasons (Cook being a contentious figure).
'When times are tough … we have an obligation to work harder to bring people together, not use platforms like this to divide, but to use them to make sure we are building social cohesion.'
Yarra City Council Mayor Stephen Jolly labelled the decision a 'boring economic issue' and denied caving to vandals.
'I'm not in favour of demolishing statues of people in the past, even problematic ones, but don't think if we put it back up, it wouldn't just be damaged again,' he said.
'It would be ongoing … how can we justify that?'
The memorial has been vandalised several times since 2018.
In 2020 it was spray-painted with 'shame' and 'remove this'.
A similar statue of Captain Cook was hacked off in St Kilda last year.
The council will explore an 'appropriate institution to take ownership' of the monument.
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