“But [I] don’t think if we put it back up, it would be just damaged one more time. It would be ongoing, ongoing and ongoing. And how can we justify that?”
Premier Jacinta Allan said at a press conference on Wednesday morning that she was not aware of the reason for the City of Yarra’s decision.
“Any sort of senseless vandalism of monuments and public spaces is deeply disrespectful, and I think we’ve seen enough of the division,” she said.
“We’ve seen enough of, particularly [from] some politicians, trying to divide at a time when we know … they are looking for leaders to lead and not further divide. So it’s disappointing if Yarra has made this decision on those reasons.”
However, Mayor Jolly strongly rejected any notion that the decision was based on councillor views of whether colonial statues were appropriate.
“[Jacinta Allan] has systematically bled councils dry of money, but then wants to dictate what councils should spend money on,” Jolly said on Wednesday morning.
Premier Jacinta Allan at a construction site in the Docklands on Wednesday morning.Credit: Joe Armao
“We haven’t got the money to be the protector of every statue. And we’ve got an alternative here that’s a win-win for everybody.”
At Tuesday night’s meeting, Jolly encouraged the Yarra chief executive to consider an offer from the Captain Cook Society’s Bill Lang for that group to take possession of the monument’s plaques and seek another location for their display.
Lang said the Captain Cook Society were having informal discussions with other local governments and museums to find a home for the monument, and would “act as custodians of it in the short term”.
“Rather than it sitting in some council shed somewhere … it should be preserved, and an appropriate place found for it,” Lang said.
Bill Lang from the Captain Cook Society at Cooks’ Cottage in Fitzroy Gardens.Credit: Paul Jeffers
He believed helping facilitate the monument’s removal from Edinburgh Gardens was a pragmatic step and did not amount to giving in to the pressure of vandals.
“I don’t think it’s for a council to necessarily pursue things like the memorial, if they can’t afford to do it, given other pressing issues citizens have got in the City of Yarra,” Lang said.
He urged police to enforce the law and protect against similar vandalism of Captain Cook monuments.
“It’s incredibly disappointing that there are people that can’t put themselves in the shoes of people of their time,” he said.
“We would all do much better to understand our history and to learn from it.”
With Daniella White
