’Real work’: Graffiti protest lashed

The iconic Trades Hall union building in Melbourne was defaced early Thursday morning with vicious anti-police graffiti in the latest incident of pro-Palestine vandalism to strike the city.

Messages in orange paint reading “cops defend genocide” and “ACAB”, which stands for “all cops are bastards”, were written on the pillars of the legendary 19th-century hall, the home of Victoria’s trade union movement.

“Free Palestine” and “cops out of trades hall” were also painted onto the building.

Victoria Police is investigating the defacement.

“Police are investigating after a building near the intersection of Victoria and Lygon streets was graffitied around 3.30am this morning,” the police said.

“The investigation into the incident is ongoing.”

Trades Hall secretary Luke Hilakari slammed the act as “cowardly”.

“These people are broadly some left wing anarchists who think you make change through the end of a spray can rather than actually doing real work,” he said.

“It’s performative activism.

“The people who have something to say they don’t hide behind masks. This is cowardly.”

A video posted to the Whistleblowers, Activists and Communities Alliance Facebook page shows at least three people in black outfits and masks spray-painting the messages in the dark.

Rock band Rage Against the Machine plays as background music to the footage.

Mr Hilakari said Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen, and Police Association of Victoria and City of Melbourne Deputy Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece had reached out to offer their support to the union.

“We’ve been vocal in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, but I think they’re got other agendas at play here,” he said.

WACA calls itself a “grassroots alliance supporting communities to campaign to end war, defend human, environmental and civil rights and confront corporate corruption.”

The defacement of the union hall comes one day after a shocking pro-Palestine vandalism attack on the office of Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns in St Kilda in which the words “Zionism is fascism” were painted over Mr Burns’ image.

Speaking on Wednesday morning, Mr Burns said the attackers, who also smashed in windows and lit fires, were “politically motivated”.

“At 3.20 this morning, six people turned up to my office,” he said.

“They came with kerosene, they smashed in windows with a hammer, they spray-painted on the outside of my office, they spray-painted in the inside of my office.

“They lit two fires, one on the left-hand side of my office and one outside the door to the residential apartments upstairs.

“It was a very reckless and dangerous vandalism of my office.

“This was really ugly behaviour.”

Anthony Albanese condemned the incident and said those responsible should face “the full force of the law”.

“This is a serious attack. The targeting of a Jewish MP is very distressing,” the Prime Minister said.

“There is no place for political violence in Australia.”

Tensions over Israel and Palestine have erupted into Australian streets since the Hamas terror attack on the Jewish state on October 7 last year.

Pro-Palestine protests have mushroomed across major cities, with protesters incensed by Israel’s campaign in Gaza and the sharp rise in Palestinian deaths.

There has also been a dramatic spike in anti-Semitic prejudice, with Jewish Australians suffering a 738 per cent spike in abuse across October and November 2023 compared with the same period in 2022, according to an interim report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.

In one example, the words “bring back Hitler, finish the job” were discovered in a bathroom in Sydney.

ECAJ co-CEO Alex Ryvchin claimed the two attacks showed the emergence of a “new fascism” in Australia.

“Yesterday the target was a Jewish member of parliament, today it is Trades Hall,” he said.

“The message from those responsible is clear. Whoever fails to submit to their ideology is an enemy. No room for dissent. No room for debate.

“That is called fascism. But just as the attack on Josh Burns was principally an attack on a Jewish public figure, this attack is an assault on the labour movement and working Australians.

“Nazism targeted Jews and unionists. This new fascism is doing the same.

“We stand with the staff and members in condemning this intimidation and cowardice. It has no place in Australia.”