{"id":66166,"date":"2026-08-06T04:35:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T04:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/66166\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T04:35:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T04:35:18","slug":"100-year-old-war-memorial-in-victorian-town-of-beaufort-vandalised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/66166\/","title":{"rendered":"100-year-old war memorial in Victorian town of Beaufort vandalised"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victoria Police are investigating the vandalism of a 100-year-old war memorial in the Victorian town of Beaufort last month.<\/p>\n

Beaufort RSL president Donald Carnes said the vandals painted offensive slogans including “death to Australia”, “death to the ADF”, “land back” and “blood on your hands”.<\/p>\n

Police said in a statement that Beaufort Memorial Park on Havelock Street was graffitied sometime between Saturday July 25 and Sunday July 26.<\/p>\n

“The paint has since been removed and an investigation is underway,” Victoria Police said.<\/p>\n

The memorial was unveiled in the 1920s to honour local men and women who were involved in World War I.<\/p>\n

Locals gather at the site for Anzac Day and Remembrance Day.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Police are investigating the incident. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Whole town ‘hurt’<\/p>\n

Mr Carnes said he was horrified and shocked by the vandalism.<\/p>\n

“I feel really hurt somebody would compromise something like that,” he said.<\/p>\n

“A lot of the people whose names [are on the memorial] unfortunately didn’t come home.<\/p>\n

“The memorial is there for their memories.<\/p>\n

“The whole town is really hurt. The memorial has sat there for over 100 years and has never been compromised in any way.”<\/p>\n

\"Vandalism<\/p>\n

The memorial has names of soldiers who fought in both world wars. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

‘Strongly condemn’<\/p>\n

The Pyrenees Shire Council said in a statement it was deeply saddened and disappointed by the vandalism.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson said council staff quickly removed the graffiti on Monday and are actively monitoring the site.<\/p>\n

Mayor Damien Ferrari said the memorial was sacred to the town.<\/p>\n

“The graffiti on the war memorial at Beaufort Memorial Park has deeply upset our community,” Cr Ferrari said.<\/p>\n

“This site stands as place of remembrance, respect and reflection, and the damage caused does not reflect the values of the shire.<\/p>\n

“We strongly condemn this act and will work to restore the memorial as quickly as possible.”<\/p>\n

\"War<\/p>\n

Pyrenees shire Mayor Damien Ferrari says the memorial is sacred. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

‘Shameful’<\/p>\n

Member for Ripon Martha Haylett said the incident was “shameful”.<\/p>\n

“So many from Beaufort gave everything for the freedoms we enjoy today,” Ms Haylett said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Defacing the place we honour them is a disgrace.<\/p>\n

“Acts like this have no place in our community. I want to thank the council for their quick response in getting the graffiti cleaned up.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victoria Police are investigating the vandalism of a 100-year-old war memorial in the Victorian town of Beaufort last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6101,22,21,82334,10462,82335,2170,10461,82333],"class_list":["post-66166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-adf","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-beaufort-war-memorial","tag-graffiti","tag-pyrenees-shire-council","tag-rsl","tag-vandalism","tag-war-memorial-vandalised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}