Two women have been arrested after a statue of British explorer James Cook was vandalised in Sydney.
The Royal Navy navigator charted the site of the first British penal colony in Australia, which became Sydney, in 1770.
New South Wales police were alerted to graffiti in the city's Hyde Park just after 4am before two suspects in their late 20s were arrested.
The news comes as protesters marching against racial discrimination around the world have toppled monuments celebrating figures with controversial histories.
Police said in a statement that the arrested women were found with a bag containing a number of spray-paint cans.
They were refused bail and will be charged with the destroying and damaging property, it said.
The statute was cleaned by Sydney council workers on Sunday morning.
Police in the neighbouring state of Victoria are also investigating the weekend defacing of the statues of two former Australian prime ministers at a Ballarat park.
Anti-racism protesters, who have taken to the streets following the death of African American George Floyd in police custody, are demanding that the legacies of some of the architects of Europe’s empire-building be revisited and their statues torn down.
From Edward Colston in England to Christopher Columbus in the United States and King Leopold II in Belgium, statues of empire builders have been under attack in recent weeks, sometimes from the descendants of those they once colonised.
