The City of Melbourne is set to protect Melbourne’s statues and memorials during high-risk periods with security guards, fencing and greater CCTV coverage.
The council passed a motion calling for a proactive approach for statues and memorials during “periods of heightened risks to public property” at its first meeting for the year on Tuesday night.
Lord Mayor Nick Reece said it was “very sad” but clear that additional protection was needed for Melbourne’s statues and monuments, including security guards, fencing in the form of barrier enclosures and expanded CCTV.
He called on the council to recover costs from vandals: “put simply, if you break it, you buy it”.
The council’s push to safeguard Melbourne’s statues and monuments follows the destruction of a 155-year-old monument and damage to another in Flagstaff Gardens in the lead-up to this year’s Australia Day.
The Pioneer Monument, which was erected in 1871 to the memory of “some of the earliest pioneers of this colony” was broken into pieces with the words “death to Australia” graffitied at its base.
The Separation Memorial, which dates back to 1950 and marks the 100th anniversary of the proclamation of the Victorian government, was also graffitied with the words “land back”.
Incidents of vandalism to statues and memorials over the past two years includes the King George V memorial in King’s Domain which was beheaded in 2024, the Captain Cook statue in the Fitzroy Gardens which was vandalised in February 2025 less than two weeks after it was reinstalled following a $13,000 repair job, the Queen Victoria statue in the Queen Victoria Gardens was sprayed with red paint in January 2025 and 2024 and the Zelda D’Aprano statue in front of Trades Hall and the Hochgurtel Fountain in Carlton Gardens have also been targeted.
The head of the King George V statue has not been seen since it was set alight on a barbecue with footage posted to social media on Australia Day.
Councillors expressed frustration at the length of time it has taken to repair the statues and monuments, along with the cost.
Councillor Philip Le Liu questioned the repair and replacement costs, which council staff said would total around $400,000. The council has a $200,000 yearly budget for maintaining the council’s art and monuments.
He called for innovative techniques such as digital mapping to reduce the cost of replacing statues and said repairs needed to be financially sustainable so the council would not go bankrupt.
“Statues have been destroyed left, right and centre in Melbourne and that’s something that as a fundamental core principle in the City of Melbourne we just cannot live with,” he said.
Reece said the council needed to send a message to vandals and would not reward their actions by allowing the damage to remain.
“You will not achieve change by damaging property,” he said. “If you break it, we will fix it, if you topple it, we will reinstate it.”
Reece called for an update on the timeline for the repair of the King George V statue, which has now been missing for 19 months.
He also called for timelines on the delivery of a statue of Vida Goldstein which was commissioned in December 2023 and the reinstatement of the statue of Burke and Wills which was removed from City Square in 2017 and has been in storage ever since.
The motion was passed by a majority of councillors but Greens councillor Olivia Ball voted against the motion on the basis that it was “a fool’s errand” as reinstating damaged statues may be an incentive rather than a deterrent and Labor councillor Davydd Griffiths abstained from voting.
“Do not just assume that putting these things back up will be a deterrent, it could be an opportunity to have another go,” Ball said.
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