Council Votes Not to Remove Vandalised Statue of Colonial Figure

Randwick City Council said they will reinstate the Captain Cook stature despite calls from their Mayor to remove it. Courtesy of Randwick City Council

Randwick Council in Sydney’s eastern suburbs has announced it will not remove a statue of Captain James Cook that was vandalised with red graffiti, and will instead, undertake repair work despite calls in some quarters for the eradication of effigies of colonial figures.

New South Wales Police received a report of vandalism on Feb. 15, in which part of the Cook statue located at the corner of Belmore Road and Avoca Streets in Randwick had its sandstone damaged and was found partially covered with red paint.

No arrests have been made, but the Randwick City Council said on Feb. 18, “We are currently working with local police who are investigating the matter and we have also engaged heritage stonework specialists to repair the monument.”

That work is now underway after councillors met for an Extraordinary Council Meeting on March 11 to discuss the issue. The Council confirmed the statue, which was unveiled in 1874, and presented to the Municipal Council of Randwick by H. S. Gibson in 1910, will be reinstated after repair work is complete at the end of March.

Despite the Randwick City Council saying it condemned “all acts of vandalism,” the Council’s own mayor, Philipa Veitch, representing the Greens Party, argued for the statue’s removal.

The mayor said she held a “strong personal view” that statues of colonial figures “should be taken down and removed from our civic spaces,” adding that “they stand as a symbol and reminder of colonial oppression.”

“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,” said Ms. Veitch, who said the statue should be donated to a museum.

An Ongoing Battle

The Randwick incident is the latest in a series of acts against colonial figures’ statues.

In April 2023, a statue of Lachlan Macquarie located in Windsor’s McQuade Park in Sydney’s northwest, was covered in red hand prints and spray painted with the word “murderer” before an ANZAC Day service.

A similar incident occurred in 2017.

At the time, Hawkesbury Mayor Sarah McMahon said, “I understand people have strong views and feelings on issues, but this is not the appropriate way to express that. This is public property and vandalism and destruction of any kind is unacceptable.”

This year, three memorials to Captain Cook have been vandalised, including a statue at St Kilda’s Jacka Boulevard in Melbourne that was sawn off at the ankles just before Australia Day on Jan. 26.

A second attack in Fitzroy’s Edinburgh Gardens saw a statue of Cook broken up and smeared with graffiti.

The move was rejected with Heritage Minister Penny Sharpe saying enough protections were already in place.