Statues of Britain's James Cook and Queen Victoria have been vandalised in Melbourne as tensions build ahead of Australia Day on Friday.
The century-old statue of Captain Cook in St Kilda was chopped off its pedestal at the ankle and a message in red paint was written on its memorial plaque reading: "The colony will fall."
Local police believe the vandalism was carried out on Thursday morning at about 3.30am, saying several people were loitering in the area at the time.
Meanwhile a statue of Queen Victoria, which stands about 5km away at the Queen Victoria Gardens, was also sprayed with red paint.
Victoria premier Jacinta Allan said on Thursday the state Government will help restore the statues.
"This sort of vandalism has no place in our community," she said.
Two years ago, the same Cook statue was covered in red paint as part of protest actions against Australia Day.
Australia Day has historically commemorated the arrival of the first British ships in Sydney in 1788. But many Australians now see the day as marking an unwelcome invasion by a colonising empire, labelling the anniversary 'Invasion Day' instead.
Last year, thousands of Australians marked the holiday with rallies to support First Nations and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Woolworths Australia flip-flops
Woolworths Australia has been slammed as "hypocritical" on Thursday for deciding to promote food that's "great value for the Australia Day long weekend" after controversially saying it was refusing to stock Australia Day merch this year.
On Thursday, CEO Brad Banducci defended the decision not to stock the themed merchandise such as flags and caps.
"Australia Day means different things to everyone. We want everyone to make their choice about how they mark Australia Day," Banducci said.
One customer wasn't impressed with the latest move.
"Woolworths - more than happy to sell their food and promote it as 'for Australia Day' but refuse to sell any Australia Day merchandise. Just a tad hypocritical don't you think?!" she wrote.
"Saw that [new] catalogue yesterday and thought that was odd," another customer said.
Woolworths maintains it will "offer a huge variety of products to help customers mark the day as they choose".
"There are many other ways in which we are supporting our customers and our team to celebrate Australia, such as acknowledging the best of Australian products in our stores and online and supporting our team to mark Australia Day with their local community," a spokesperson said.
It reportedly did not mention Australia Day in any of its promotions in January 2022 or 2023.
