By Kellie Lazzaro, Alexander Darling, and Laura Mayers
Police are investigating the decapitation of two prime minister's busts in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens. Photo: ABC Ballarat: Alexander Darling
Police are searching for the vandals who removed the heads from two statues of Australian prime ministers and damaged 18 others in Ballarat early on Thursday morning.
Twenty of the bronze busts, which line the famed Prime Ministers Avenue, were damaged in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens on Wendouree Parade sometime between 2am and 5am.
The busts of former Labor leaders Paul Keating and Kevin Rudd have been severed and stolen in the vandalism spree.
The bronze bust of former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Ballarat before it was damaged by vandals in January 2024. Photo: ABC News / Danny Tran
Police say the name plates of the remaining statues have been covered in spray paint.
Ballarat Botanical Gardens Foundation chair Mark Schultz said the senseless act of vandalism to such an admired feature of the gardens was hard to comprehend.
"We hope the vandals are identified and charged and appropriately dealt with by the law for this wanton destruction of public property," Schultz said.
The busts are now covered in black plastic and cordoned off by temporary fencing.
The foundation that raises funds for the gardens has described the vandalism as senseless. Photo: ABC News / Laura Mayers
National significance
When each new prime minister assumes office in Australia, the City of Ballarat calls for expressions of interest from public artists to create a bust of the new leader.
The bronze busts are mounted on polished granite pedestals.
"Prime Ministers Avenue has been a site of national significance since it was opened by the Governor of Victoria in 1940, and remains a unique focal point for locals and visitors," Schultz said.
Sculptor speaks
Peter Nicholson contributed seven of the 29 sculptures of the prime ministers, including Keating and Rudd.
"It's very upsetting for me and also for Ballarat," he said on ABC Ballarat's Breakfast programme.
Sculptor Peter Nicholson says the attack is upsetting for the local community. Photo: ABC News / Laura Mayers
"It's just such a popular walk. If you go up there you see people walking up and down them all discussing what they think of them."
Nicholson said the statues were cast in bronze more than half a centimetre thick.
"They are very solid, it takes a lot to damage them, but you can hit it with a hammer and eventually you will make an indentation," he said.
"I guess it tells us something about the kind of political nonsense that goes on in a lot of people's minds."
Nicholson supplied a mould of all seven of his sculptures to Ballarat council, which can be recast at any time.
"You can actually make a fresh [bust] from those. You can even see my fingerprints on the plaster," he said.
"If you've got a mould, you can make it in a couple of days … [but] it's very difficult to get a sitting [with an ex-prime minister]."
It is not the first time ex-prime ministers have been vandalised in the gardens.
In 2020, the busts of former Liberal prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott were spray-painted with obscene words.
- ABC
