Captain Cook statue disfigured and painted red in Sydney ahead of Australia Day

A statue of British explorer Captain James Cook in a suburb of Sydney has been vandalised ahead of Australia Day, the second such incident in as many years.

New South Wales Police said they were investigating.

The vandals threw red paint, sprayed graffiti, knocked off the hand, nose and part of the face of the statue on Belmore Road in Randwick on Friday.

Australia Day, celebrated on 26 January, is a contentious holiday in the country as it is the anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788, establishing the first permanent European settlement on the continent.

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While for many Indigenous Australians, the date marks the beginning of the colonisation and dispossession of their lands, for others it is a celebration of the nation’s history, culture and achievements.

Randwick mayor Dylan Parker criticised the attack. He said the heritage statue would be restored but it would take weeks to do it, lamenting that taxpayer money could have been put to better use.

“Randwick City Council condemns this act of vandalism of the heritage Captain Cook statue,” he said.

“Vandalism has no place in public discussion. It is an illegal act that does a disservice to progressing your cause, a disservice to the community and a disservice to reconciliation.”

The council said they were actioning plans to clean and restore the statue.

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Several of Cook’s statues in Australia have been damaged amid an ongoing debate about his legacy and the impact of British colonisation on Indigenous peoples.

While Cook is historically recognised as the explorer who charted and claimed the east coast of Australia for Britain in 1770, his arrival is also seen as a prelude to the violent colonisation, dispossession and systemic oppression of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

This is because Cook’s expedition paved the way for the 1788 decision to send the First Fleet led by Captain Arthur Phillip to the new continent.

In January 2024, a statue of Cook in Melbourne was doused in paint and sawn off at the ankles on the eve of Australia Day. The vandals wrote on the plinth of the statue: “The colony will fall.”