Ballarat’s iconic Prime Ministers Avenue has fallen victim to vandalism, with statues of former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Paul Keating decapitated and stolen in a shocking theft. Police are investigating and urge anyone with information to come forward as they work to recover the missing statues and hold the offenders accountable. Watch what Senior Sargeant Brad Hall from Ballarat Police had to say in full here.
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00:00So at about 2.30 yesterday morning, being Thursday the 23rd of January, we've had a
00:05number of our Prime Minister busts that are located in the Botanical Gardens in Ballarat
00:11have been spray painted, have been damaged and a couple of those heads have been cut
00:16what appears to be from an angle grinder or something similar and two of those heads have
00:20been stolen.
00:21No.
00:22And what was written, like the paint that was vandalised, were there any words?
00:30Yeah, so there was some spray painting, some graffiti, most of the busts had red crosses
00:36painted on them, there was some other commentary around about the Commonwealth will fall and
00:41other sort of political rhetoric, what we're focused on is the fact that this is not only
00:45just an attack against the park but it's also an attack against the Ballarat community.
00:50Right, this is obviously close to Australia, as you just said, would you say this is a
00:54targeted attack or is it just more generic vandalism?
00:57Look, it's hard to say that it's not a targeted attack considering that the busts that have
01:02been damaged and have been stolen are in fact past Prime Ministers, but what we're focused
01:08on is making sure that the community is safe, making sure that we can hold our offenders
01:12to account, we're working in closely with the Ballarat Council to ensure that we can
01:15provide a safe community for everybody.
01:17Is that money, by itself, politically motivated?
01:21Yeah, look, it's hard to say, obviously we're keen to catch up with the people who are responsible
01:25for this, until we do that, it's hard for us to understand what they were thinking at
01:28the time.
01:29In the sense that there's the damage, how many busts have been stolen, how many busts
01:32have been robbed?
01:33There's approximately about 20 busts, all of them have been defaced or damaged in some
01:39way, two of the heads, as I said, have been cut and removed completely.
01:45And can we say which two heads were removed at this stage?
01:48We can, the two heads that were removed were that of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Prime
01:53Minister Paul Keating.
01:54And do you have any sense as to why those two in particular had their heads removed?
01:58No, we're still trying to work that out at this stage.
02:00What are the leads in the CCTV that might indicate how many people were involved?
02:06So, we have some CCTV that we're still working through at the moment that hopefully we'll
02:10be releasing soon.
02:11We're keen to talk to the occupants of a white ute that was seen in the area around
02:16about that time on Thursday morning, a white ute with a canopy, and there was a number
02:22of people in that ute that we're keen to speak to.
02:25So it appears at the moment that there's a few people that have been involved potentially?
02:30Yeah, our understanding at the moment is that there was a number of offenders involved.
02:33We suspect that it's about four people involved at this stage.
02:37This isn't the first time that there's been vandalism in the park.
02:40What makes these vandals so significant?
02:43As I said before, this isn't just an act of vandalism or graffiti.
02:46This is an attack against the Ballarat community.
02:50The Botanical Gardens are a much-loved community location for everybody, and for these types
02:55of acts of damage and violence, it's not just simply an attack on the park, it's an attack
03:01against the community.
03:03What kind of charges are these individuals facing?
03:07Are they being pursued for property damage or to be a star?
03:10There's a number of charges that we would be looking at should we be able to identify
03:13the offenders for this crime.
03:15We're looking at obviously theft, criminal damage, and any other type of offending we
03:20can find.
03:21At this stage, do you have any leads on whether these were locals that did this or people
03:26from out of town?
03:27No, we have no idea at this point in time.
03:29We're looking through the footage and the available evidence we have.
03:33Obviously, the appeal to the community is that if anybody sees or hears anything, to
03:38give Crime Stoppers a call.
03:40I would ask that anyone within the area who has access to CCTV, if they could review that
03:45for us, and if anything whatsoever seems to be a little bit out of place during that time,
03:50being about 2.30 on Thursday morning, if they could contact Crime Stoppers with that information.
03:54Does it appear that it's fairly similar in terms of how it was carried out to one of
03:59the victims?
04:01The offending is similar.
04:03My understanding is that a few years ago, these Prime Minister busts were heavily graffitied
04:09and defaced.
04:10I don't believe there was any stolen previously though.
04:12Is there going to be increased CCTV or police presence in the park?
04:17In the lead up to Australia Day, we'll make sure that we have our local police out doing
04:21what the local police do.
04:23We'll work continuously, hand-in-hand with the Council to ensure that all community events
04:28are run in a safe manner.
04:30At Australia Day, we'll be no different.
04:32Is the case that as a result of what's happened, police will be conducting work which involves
04:37that specific spot?
04:38Do you consider it as well?
04:40Again, to support the Council with what they're trying to achieve, which is to provide a safe,
04:46scenic location for the community, we'll ensure that we have a presence in that part of the
04:49world, as we will across the entire Ballarat area, and Victoria as a whole.
04:54You've provided some descriptions before, but in terms of behaviour like this, we're
04:58talking about using an angle grinder to chop off a head of two Prime Ministers and then
05:03defacing the rest.
05:05How do you describe that kind of behaviour?
05:08It's pretty crazy.
05:10Yeah, there's lots of adjectives you could use to describe that.
05:12I would suggest senseless comes to mind.
05:14What are they achieving?
05:16Probably not much.
05:18Again, all we ask is that the community get behind this, help us, work with the Council
05:24so we can ensure that we hold these people to account.
05:26Are they males or females?
05:29We don't know at this stage.
05:30All we know is that there's a number of offenders.
05:32Does the car have a driver's licence?
05:34Don't know.
05:35All I can say is that we're looking for a white ute with a canopy.
05:39There's still more CCTV and still more evidence to go through at this point, but at the moment
05:43that's what we've got to go on.
05:45At this stage, do you think that this would be a spontaneous attack or premeditated?
05:50Again, we're working through it.
05:51We're not quite sure as to the motivation of the offenders, but I would suggest that
05:54if they've come to the location armed with some sort of cutting device, that would suggest
05:58to me that they went there with that purpose in mind.
06:01Regarding what I'm assuming most of the people spent in the yesterday or after today or the
06:07day before, has the area been fingerprinted?
06:13Our crime scene officers attended the area yesterday morning.
06:16We were able to canvass the area and examine it forensically for any type of evidence that
06:22will help us to identify these offenders.
06:25What would you say to the offenders who may be watching?
06:30What would you say to them?
06:34I'd say to them that it's only a matter of time before you're arrested and put before
06:38the courts.
06:40I would suggest that you expediate that, return the heads to where they need to be and save
06:44us a whole lot of time and to provide the community some comfort that they've been held
06:49to account.
06:50Are police in any way concerned about any potential other politically motivated incidents
06:55that could occur in the lead up to Australia?
06:58No.
06:59There's nothing that we have that suggests locally that there's any sort of concerns.
07:02This appears to be an isolated incident that obviously we're taking very, very seriously
07:06and keen to get these people before the courts.
07:09There has been a rise in attacks on statues and labelled as senseless and actually quite
07:15costly.
07:16How disappointing is it for local police to have to come across these sorts of acts?
07:20It is quite disappointing.
07:22Not only is it, as I said before, it's an attack against our community, but they are
07:25quite expensive.
07:26These heads, I'm told, are valued at about $50,000 a pop.
07:32When you're talking $100,000 plus all the required funds to clean up the mess that these
07:37people have caused, that's money that the local council just don't have.
07:41To say that it's a senseless act I'd suggest is an understatement.
07:45We've heard from the local council they consider this an unacceptable act.
07:48I'm wondering, have police heard anything from how the local Indigenous community feels
07:52about what's happened in the past?
07:55There's nothing that suggests that this has got anything to do with our Indigenous community.
08:00It would appear that it's a little bit more politically motivated than that.
08:03We continue to work closely with all our partners, including our Aboriginal community.
08:08They would be just as keen, I would imagine, to have these people held to account than
08:13anybody else.
08:14Do you remember anything that was behind all that this year?
08:17Are you aware of that?
08:19Because that was consistent to me.
08:22Forensic officers, when they attended and processed the scene, were able to determine
08:27by the damage to the bus that it was most probably an angle grinder that was used to
08:32remove the heads.
08:33How were you alerted to the damage?
08:35Was it people going about their business?
08:38The damage was identified quite quickly by a security patrol deployed by the council
08:44to provide some oversight to that part of the world.
08:48That patrol went past not long before and then came back.
08:53So the timing of the offending was quite narrow.