'Intellectual cowardice': Melbourne council accused of caving to vandals with vote to permanently remove captain Cook memorial
Melbourne's Yarra Council has been accused of caving to vandals after it voted to permanently remove a memorial of captain James Cook, which had been damaged in January last year.
The monument previously stood at the entrance of Edinburgh Gardens, in Fitzroy North, but it has been in storage since January 28, 2024, when vandals toppled the granite plinth, damaged the bronze bust of Cook, and scrawled 'cook the colony' over it.
On Tuesday councillors unanimously voted to have the monument removed from Yarra Council's collection, rejecting a proposal to restore and reinstate it.
The decision was condemned by Dr Bella d'Abrera from the Institute of Public Affairs, who accused the council of 'intellectual cowardice'.
'It is a sad indictment on the state of Melbourne that even a granite monument, quietly standing in a park, is not safe from ideological vandalism,' Dr d'Abrera told SkyNews.com.au.
The Foundations of Western Civilisation program director said the decision was evidence of a 'deep cultural problem'.
The decision to remove the statue came following a report to council, which recommended the monument be removed from the council's collection on the grounds of the cost to repair and reinstate it, its lack of significance to Edinburgh Gardens, and the fact it was likely to be the target of vandalism in the future.
The report said the monument had suffered 'severe damage' from the vandalism, and would cost $15,000 to repair and reinstate the monument – although $5,000 of this would be covered by insurance.
'The Memorial's return to the site is likely to create a risk of ongoing vandalism of the object,' the report states
'Mitigation measures such as additional lighting or surveillance could be explored, though these will have cost implications beyond the current budget and will only operate as a deterrent.'
In supporting the plan to get rid of the monument, Yarra Council Mayor Stephen Jolly said he could not justify the ongoing cost that would come from future vandalism.
'I'm not in favour of demolishing statues of people in the past, even problematic ones,' Mayor Jolly said.
'But [I] don't think if we put it back up, it would be just damaged one more time. It would be ongoing, ongoing and ongoing. And how can we justify that?'
But Dr d'Abrera said this was only encouraging people to vandalise other statues.
'Apparently, the best way to engage with history in 2025 is to vandalise monuments. We used to debate ideas, now we just destroy anything that might offend,' she said.
She said the irony of the situation was that Captain Cook hadn't even been an advocate of colonisation.
'Captain Cook is one of the greatest explorers who ever lived and today there is still much to learn from his great legacy,' she said.
Yarra Council is currently in talks with the Captain Cook Society for the group to take possession and find a new home for the monument.
'Rather than it sitting in some council shed somewhere ... it should be preserved, and an appropriate place found for it,' the Captain Cook Society's Bill Lang told The Age.
Mr Lang acknowledged the cost of repairing and reinstating the memorial may not be feasible, given the council's other priorities.
But he urged police to enforce the law and ensure other Captain Cook monuments didn't receive the same treatment.
'It's incredibly disappointing that there are people that can't put themselves in the shoes of people of their time,' he said.
'We would all do much better to understand our history and to learn from it.'
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