Captain Cook and Queen Victoria statues vandalised in Melbourne

A statue of British explorer Captain James Cook was sawn off the ankles and a statue of the UK's Queen Victoria was splattered with red paint in Melbourne early on Thursday on the eve of Australia's national day.

The Cook memorial plinth in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda was also graffitied with the words of "the colony will fall."

Cook's sawn off statue was placed on the ground in front of the monument.

The statue was also doused in red paint in January 2022.

Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan told reporters the vandalism had no place in the community.

She said the statue will be repaired and reinstated.

Workers in the city's Queen Victoria Gardens were also cleaning up the red paint covering the Queen Victoria memorial.

On Friday, Australians will mark the 236th anniversary of British colonization with a public holiday that evokes anger at Indigenous injustice.

There are growing public calls to change the date of Australia Day, which is known to many Indigenous people as Invasion Day and Survival Day, because of the impacts on First Nations people of British colonists taking their land without a treaty.

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