Statue of British Monarch Beheaded During King’s Birthday Public Holiday

Activists have vandalised a statue of King George V in Melbourne’s CBD amid an ongoing campaign targeting the effigies of Australian colonial-era figures.

Footage on social media showed a person wearing a green high-vis jacket cutting off the head of the former British monarch’s statue in Kings Domain on Linlithgow Avenue, near the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.

The 54-second video also showed a person covering the statue’s plinth with red paint and spraying the anti-colonial slogan, “The colony will fall.”

The song, God Save the Queen, by UK punk rock band The Clash was overlayed on the footage.

The account @akaWACA by the “Whistleblowers, Activists and Communities Alliance” posted the video on X on June 10—a day Australians were commemorating the annual public holiday, the King’s Birthday.

“We’ve been sent a birthday, greeting for his majesty. Happy birthday mofo!” WACA said in its caption.

“From the river to the sea, #alwayswasalwayswillbe,” they added, citing an oft-repeated phrase by pro-Palestinian activists.

Police were called to the scene just after 9 a.m. on June 10.

“It appears the head of the statue has been removed and red paint thrown at the monument,” a police spokesman said in a statement.

All states in the country were officially on holiday, bar Queensland and Western Australia.

WACA also posted and re-posted pro-Palestine and anti-colonialism content on its account, as well as calling Prime Minister Anthony Albanese a “genocide enabler” who is “literally gaslighting the entire nation” in one of its posts.

The vandalism came following a string of attacks against the monuments of colonial figures in the country.

In May, a statue of William Crowther, former Tasmanian state premier, was sawn off at the ankles and vandalised with graffiti in Hobart, Tasmania.

The statue was found face-down on the ground in Franklin Square, sprayed painted with the phrases “What goes around,” and “decolonize.”

On Feb. 26, recognised as Australia Day, a group of activists toppled the statue of Captain James Cook in Melbourne, which was also sawn off at the ankles and defaced a day earlier.

The monument was sprayed with the words “the colony will fall” in bright red paint.

A statue of Queen Victoria was also defaced with red paint on the same day.