City willing to talk statues
THE City of Greater Geelong has revealed it is open to a discussion about its monuments to historical figures, as debate continues over the suitability of tributes to some colonial figures.
Statues of contentious historical figures have been torn down around the world in recent weeks amid the global Black Lives Matter movement.
City Hall heritage advisory committee chair Jim Mason said the city was not opposed to discussing its historical statues and monuments, but it was yet to receive any submissions or requests regarding the alteration or removal of any public art or statue.
Geelong has 17 significant statues and monuments across the city, including a memorial for controversial explorer John Batman at Indented Head.
THE City of Greater Geelong has revealed it is open to a discussion about its monuments, as debate continues over the suitability of tributes to some colonial figures.
Statues of contentious historical figures have been torn down around the world amid the global Black Lives Matter movement, sparked by the death of African-American George Floyd while being arrested in the US.
In Australia protesters have focused on indigenous deaths in custody, incarceration rates and the treatment of indigenous people.
Some monuments have been targeted in Victoria, including busts of former Prime Ministers Tony Abbott and John Howard in Ballarat at the weekend, and a statute of Matthew Flinders in Melbourne which was adorned with a face mask with “BLM” written on it, and a sign taped to a monument to explorer Angus McMillan in Stratford — claiming he led the “highland Brigade in a massacre of dozens of Gurnai Kurnai [sic] people, including women and children”.
City of Greater Geelong heritage advisory committee chair Jim Mason said the city was not opposed to discussing its historical statues and monuments.
“The council is open to discussions about our public art and historical monument collection,” Cr Mason said.
But he said the city was yet to receive any submissions or requests regarding the alteration or removal of any public art or statue.
Geelong has 17 significant statues and monuments, including a memorial for controversial explorer John Batman in Indented Head.
Batman is known as one of Melbourne’s founders, but his name is also synonymous with indigenous land dispossession after the explorer convinced indigenous elders to sign an agreement trading more than 200,000ha of ancestral land for blankets, flour and other goods in 1835.
In recent years his name has been stripped from a federal electorate, popular Melbourne park and even as the name for a high school house.
Victoria’s first female Aboriginal MP. Lidia Thorpe. this week spoke out against the celebration of some contentious Australian historical figures.
“I don’t think that we should be celebrating anybody who has been responsible for mass murders, I don’t think that would be appropriate,” Ms Thorpe said.