Wednesday, 17 June 2026

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (19:00): (2597) My matter is for the Attorney-General’s attention tonight, and it concerns yet another day when prominence has come to those who would defile and deface our Anzacs, our RSLs and the legacy that we have of those who fought and died and protected our country. Today there has been a court hearing. Edith Pope and Charlie Tidmarsh have won the right to keep their faces hidden, but I do hope that they eventually face a very clear set of penalties. On Anzac Day they were arrested spray-painting the words ‘Fuck the Anzacs’ – excuse me, President – ‘Kill the troops’, ‘Courts have no jurisdiction on stolen land’. These are extraordinary things that they would say. Further, ‘Death to the ADF’, ‘Gallipoli – do it again’, ‘Death to Australia’ were sprayed in red across multiple external walls at the Reservoir and Heidelberg RSLs. This is just extraordinary.

Some of them have been here as well. It is them, and there should be no mercy shown with these people. We have seen it also at places that I am very familiar with. At Prahran in the City of Stonington this Anzac Day it was discovered that in fact a number of plaques and bronze parts of the cenotaph had been jemmied off and broken by vandals, and indeed some in Victoria Gardens, which is a very nice park where the cenotaph is and the Anzac celebrations are held by the Prahran RSL. The bronze urns were also cut off, clearly with very sophisticated equipment. This is tremendous damage. It is a direct attack on our history. It is a direct attack on those who have served and given their lives, and I, for one, say it has got to stop.

There are not many things I think the City of Melbourne do well, but I notice that recently they have taken the step of saying that they will pursue people who attack signs and monuments, pursue them to recover the money and pursue them as long as they need. These examples that I am giving here are many, many thousands of dollars of cost, and they ought to pursue these sorts of people. They ought to pursue them to the end of the earth, frankly. I am asking the Attorney-General to come forward with some proposals to deal with what is an epidemic of attacks on our Gallipoli and Anzac history. Enough is enough. We need to protect our servicemen and their heritage and their records. It is time that the Attorney-General came forward with some positive steps to deal with this.