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.
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