A statue in Sydney of British explorer James Cook, captain of the first Western ship to reach the east coast of Australia, was sprayed with red paint and damaged two days before Australia's national day, authorities said on Friday.
It was the second time the statue has been defaced and vandalised in the last year. Police said that they had begun an investigation and that several items had been found near the statue.
Local councillor Carolyn Martin said the vandals may have scaled a fence around the statue using a ladder, which they left behind.
"It's an absolute mess," Martin told radio station 2GB. "They have splattered paint all over it, then they have managed to get to the top of the statue and they've knocked his hand off and also part of his face and nose."
For many Indigenous Australians, who trace their lineage on the continent back 50,000 years and make up about 4% of the country's population of 27 million, the Australia Day holiday is known as Invasion Day, symbolizing the destruction of their cultures by European settlers.
Many Indigenous groups want Australia to drop celebrations or move the date, which marks the anniversary of the arrival of the British First Fleet in 1788.
Every year on Jan. 26, protesters rally against the mistreatment of Indigenous people, who are by most socio-economic measures the most disadvantaged people in the country.
A survey by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Friday showed the support to keep Jan 26 as Australia's national day surged to 61% from 47% over the past two years, signaling a shift in voters' sentiment.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
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Ricky Kaminski13
Yep, every country has them unfortunately. The idiot activist class that would rather deface, destroy and disband the gifts given to them by a country that has at its core open arms with a fair go for all. The ‘change the date’ anti-Australia Day crowd have taken a real hit in popularity recently too, which must also sting.
Aussies are gunna be doing what they do best on Australia Day. Living it up and having a laugh. The grievance peddlers will be doing their own version of the day, being sad and bitter which is very far from the Aussie way of life. So far that they are becoming finally irrelevant.
Peter14
"The Commonwealth of Australia was declared on 1 January 1901 at a ceremony held in Centennial Park in Sydney."
Australia day should be celebrated on 2nd of January, the first full day of Australian existence after a ceremony held the day before. Australians would enjoy a double holiday, Jan 1st new years day, and Australia day Jan 2nd.
Having the date on invasion day is an affront to all indigenous people. So if we are going to be fair dinkum about Australia day representing all Australians, it must be moved to a date all can celebrate.
Why celebrate what is after all an English achievement in the discovery a new land on Jan 26th? To me that makes no sense.
GuruMick
Muslims I reckon.....bring in the anti terror squad and make a big deal about it.
Seriously though....Cook was a brilliant sailor, maybe the best of his generation.
I have read his log books.
Travelling up the East Coast he noted how forests ...later found to be cedar ....came down almost to the waters edge . All gone now, "red gold " was the name wood cutters gave cedar trees.
Voyages to New Zealand also interesting in how various native tribes went to war with each other, some practicing cannibalism.
Unfair to blame Cookie for todays real Aboriginal disadvantage though.
He didnt actually spend much time ashore and his Commission was to treat the natives humanely.
And it was a "secret commission", to fool the Frenchies who also eyed the "Southern Land ", Cooks initial orders were to sail to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus.
Only in Tahiti did he open his "real" commission, to sail down south and claim for Mother England, the land we know as Australia.
So idiots...Hands of Cook statues....you could be all speaking French...Quelle Horror
GuruMick
Not to be pedantic Ricky, but the date for Australia day was not/is not written in stone with a few changes over the years since Federation.
But leave Cook alone I say and we can agree on this.
Too cold for a BBQ here in Japan but I,ll have a beer and toast to you.
GuruMick
Peter above...."Invasion Day " moniker comes in around 1930,s or later, given new life in the 1980,s well after Australia Day settled ....used to be called Federation Day and held on another date.
Australia has a National Sorry Day , recognition of prior Aborigine "ownership of land " in Parliament opening and other issues and dates that recognise Aboriginal position in Australian history.
Changing the date of Australia Day will achieve zero but further enrage the right wing rat bags who are not pro Aboriginal in anything.
Steady as she goes , as Cook might have said, would be my advice.
Jay
Sigh. Yet another embarrassing tantrum from these WOKE clowns. Thankfully, the majority of Australians support celebrating our national day on January 26, so shove that down your pipes and smoke it.
Maybe instead of spray paint and outrage, these ungrateful idiots could try contributing something meaningful to Aus society - if they can tear themselves away from their woke rainbow echo chambers long enough.
https://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/national/clear-majority-of-australians-support-national-day-on-january-26/video/cb18a7014d8fc9d6bf4011aae06c1015
Jay
Perhaps a Welcome to Country would make them feel better on Jan 26.
They could acknowledge the early pioneers who came to Australia over two hundred years ago and developed an almost uninhabitable land by establishing farms, roads, schools, hospitals, towns and cities, railways, ports and harbours, universities, health clinics, telecommunications, factories and industries, warm (or cool) comfortable homes, shopping centres, a reliable abundant food supply, libraries, clean water, electricity and gas, airlines, the mining industry ... the list goes on.
John-San
The day of invasion happen on Gadigal country. The invasion of Yuan Country happen on another day so you have many dates of invasion of Aboriginal Countries or Nation. These Aboriginal Countries/Nation all have different laws and different tradition. Think along the same line as Europe. If Gadial nation get the 26/1 then you have Yuan nation get their on their date of invasion. There is 250 Aboriginal Nation. that means 250 invasion days every year. It a very complex situation which involve different politic like welcome to Country ceremonies, smoking ceremonies, Come off age ceremonies. Each nation have different tradition regarding these ceremonies in their nation. A day should be determined which can include all Aboriginal Nation and white Australia. I would call it Belonging Day. Then the defacing of people tradition and scared places and monuments would be solved.
I am for 26/1 being Australia Day.
Mr Kipling
The Indigenous Australians should be angry, angry with their ancestors who allowed a few hundred men from halfway around the world take over their land.
They hadn't developed much technology in those years, I wonder if they would have progressed much if the Europeans hadn't arrived.
Jay
See my previous comment. The clear MAJORITY of Australians want to keep the date as January 26th. If it's moved, that would simply placate the MINORITY who want to change it.
Besides all that, what a remarkably ungrateful take from someone benefiting daily from the society built on the foundations you dismiss as some "English achievement." Moving Australia Day to January 2nd? Great idea - let's water down its significance so it feels like an afterthought to New Year's hangovers.
And stop with all that "Invasion Day" nonsense - all that does is ignore the complexity of history and the countless contributions made by people of ALL backgrounds since 1788. If you're so offended by Jan 26, maybe you should take the day off celebrating entirely... oh wait, you probably still want the public holiday, don't you mate?
Mr Kipling
Indigenous Australians are the ones who should be celebrating loudest. They have made huge gains overall since the arrival of "the invaders".
wallace
The Europeans introduced Western diseases STDs, and animals like rabbits. The major epidemic diseases during the early contact stage were smallpox, syphilis, tuberculosis, influenza, and measles. Each of these diseases was responsible for excessive morbidity and mortality.
Peter14
Only two years ago they were the minority.
Who is majority or minority changes. That being the case this will continue to be divisive until its fixed. These conversations take away from what should be a day that all Australians can identify with and support. January 2nd would fit that description.
Jan 26 should be a holiday for the British who made the discovery. Australians should have their own day not associated with the British. Thats why Jan 2nd works for me.
iron man
So, removing indigenous peoples from all ways of their previous lives then not allowing them to have any say in governing the nation of their abode, haa majority says we want this! and minority has no rights. mmh a bit reminiscent of a preious culling of indigenous people.
GuruMick
Jay...it is not all good...our Australian history has an appalling record when it comes to Aboriginal people.
Stolen land, stolen children, stolen opportunity.
This story is about defacing/ruining a statue of Cook.
Its only the last decades that Aussies have even considered the way white laws governed Aboriginal people.
I have a " pass law " document from an earlier times allowing movement from a settlement to other areas .
Pale skinned kids "stolen generation " taken from parents for assimilation.
I also have a pic of my white Prussian ancestors outside a log hut with hessian bags for windows.
Stolen land....white squatters given title to land they occupied and ran sheep on.
Not a simple history.
Indigenous people world wide got shafted.
But this is an item about Cook, who did none of the above.
English law applied sometimes equally, with white squatters being hanged for killing blacks.
Dont deny the past nor make it all rosy.....but can we keep Australia Day as it is ?
John-San
Guru Mick, The appalling record was committed by a select group, the elite Catholics. Squatter ( Protestants ) who farmed non survey lands because of class discrimination would see prim survey lands distributed to the wealthy Catholics first. Protestant were very welcome because of how they approach the Aboriginal with friendship. goods like blankets and axes etc. Where the elite Catholics run them off the land with violence and murder. This was a small group but a political powerful group. You never hear of the good that the Aboriginal received only the bad stuff that was dish out.
Fighto!
Iron Man -
Huh?
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are over-represented in the Australian parliament based on their population.
Jay
They do... it's called Alice Springs, now the 18th most dangerous city in the world.
https://www.9news.com.au/world/worlds-most-dangerous-cities-in-pictures/9deb0a4a-1fe5-4a75-8fa1-c65e59e241fd
starpunk
The igneous Aussie Aborigines, like Native Americans, Māori, Ainu, the first Madagascarians, Laplanders, Greenlanders and more were doing just fine on their own before outsiders came in and spoiled everything. And it's happened on every continent and yes, even every race has committed these colonizations and genocides somewhere, everywhere on this planet.
Something to really celebrate, huh?
These abuses were committed (and still are) by zealots and fanatics of every religion - Catholic, Protestant, anybody. There is nothing 'Christian' or religious about invasion, slavery, genocidal acts, none. And Australia itself was a penal colony, an Imperialistic British 'trash can'. Where is the glory in that?
We can't change things back to where they were but all this 'white-washing' is a bunch of hokey kangaroo doo-doo. We must learn from our ugly past and mistakes and stop glorifying the so-called 'heroes' who contributed nothing good in the long run.
I'm not sure about what impact Capt. Cook may have done on the land Down Under by his 'discovery' or what he did, but it did lead to a chain reaction of horror.
At least when Eric the Red and Lief Ericsson visited North America (and there's evidence that imperial Chinese sailors did as well), it was tough enough due to the Arctic, and they had enough scruples to not mess with the Native Americans. As for Christopher Columbus, he was not a 'hero' but a Big Fat Zero.
Toblerone
The Europeans introduced Western diseases STDs, and animals like rabbits. The major epidemic diseases during the early contact stage were smallpox, syphilis, tuberculosis, influenza, and measles. Each of these diseases was responsible for excessive morbidity and mortality.
Oh, get real!
Blacksamurai
Prominent Indigenous Australians like Jacinta Price who is the opposition spokesperson for the Indigenous portfolio and Warren Mundine who is a Senator in the same Liberal party which leans conservative have spoken out againt decades of Labor-Left policies to do with Indigenous people.
They both point out the contradiction in raging against Australia Day in a time when Indigenous people have never had so much taxpayer money and opportunities in all walks of life. In the past decade alone, a lot of land has been given in all Aus states to 'the traditional owners' despite the fact that some of the traditional groups are long gone and the claimants now sometimes have no connection and have a lot of white ancestry with one or two Indigenous ancestors.
Labor-Left policies for decades have assigned billions of dollars to that 3 percent or so of the Aus population without much accountability and without expecting Indigenous people to meet the standards that would improve their own lives with all these resources.
A constant theme of the thousands and thousands of tax payer funded Indigenous organisations is 'self determination' yet they cannot meet any reasonable standards of improving the lives of their people. Partly to do with the fact that unqualified Indigenous who have family links to those in the loop and political associations are promoted over those with ability.
The Labor-Left approach of encouraging victimhood and the new racism of low expectations is behind many of the problems of Indigenous people. Billions spent on free everything, there is an Indigenous tv/media network fully funded like everything else by public money that continually plays on the victimhood narrative but many Indigenous people have good public paid jobs, run businesses that are also funded by the rest of Australia, their welfare is mostly double that of others and they are given exemptions from fees and obligations in many cases that everybody else has to pay. The Australian governance system has been incredibly generous for around 40 yrs in these ways and more.
Their healthcare is entirely free no matter if they earn over 100,000 dollars at one of those generous public positions. Yet non Indigenous people still have to go to the remote areas and crime ridden areas of the Nth Territory to be nurses and give healthcare because mostly the Indigenous younger people do not want to do those jobs despite their college degrees. Yet at the same time the 'activists' claim they are all oppressed by people of white ethnicity. You can't have it both ways but the activists try to.
Jacinta Price's mother is Bess Price, a traditional Indigenous woman who was given a high honor by President Obama for her services to Indigenous Australians. The left leaning newspapers and media barely covered this if at all because Bess Price is not from their side of politics and like Jacinta, Warren Mundine and others has called for accountability and a change in the way the dysfunctions in Indigenous culture are stopping progress, including running the victimhood narrative instead of using resources wisely and tackling the nepotism that stymies good initiatives.