Melbourne's oldest building, La Trobe's Cottage, has been defaced with red paint, marking the latest in a series of attacks on Australian colonial monuments by left-wing extremists. The extremists, who have declared no colonial history can be left intact, shared footage of the attack, showing a woman using a repurposed fire extinguisher to spray red paint onto the historic structure. The statement released by the far-left activist group Whistleblowers, Activists & Communities Alliance (WACA) claims that La Trobe, the home's former occupant, oversaw the expansion of a violent settler colony and the genocide and ethnic cleansing of what is now Melbourne. It also highlights his comments about Aboriginal people in 1840 and 1839, accusing him of enabling and participating in at least 54 massacres of Aboriginal communities. The extremists state that no colonial building, memorial, or monument can be left intact, as the colony and its settlers refuse to acknowledge the violence enacted on First Nations peoples by their British heroes. This wave of attacks mirrors scenes in other Western nations following the Black Lives Matter protests. Melbourne has seen a series of defacements, including the iconic Pioneer Statue being torn down and a nearby monument defaced with Hamas symbols and anti-Australian messages. The Separation Monument, a site commemorating the separation of the Victorian colony from NSW, was also vandalized. A war memorial in Eltham was doused with red paint and attacked with sledgehammers. Despite the escalating wave of anti-colonial attacks, zero charges have been laid for criminal damage since 2020, despite at least 18 statues or memorials being vandalized in Victoria.
