{"id":456872,"date":"2026-02-04T01:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/456872\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T01:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:53:10","slug":"sick-art-hijacked-by-hate-posters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/456872\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Sick\u2019: Art hijacked by hate posters"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mayor of Melbourne has slammed vandals who hijacked an art series across Melbourne celebrating the country\u2019s multiculturalism, replacing the posters across the city with the face of the alleged Bondi gunman.<\/p>\n

About 50 knock-off prints of Adelaide artist Peter Drew\u2019s recognisable \u201cAussie\u201d poster have been plastered across parts of the Melbourne CBD featuring the face of Naveed Akram, who is one of the alleged shooters behind the Bondi terror attack, which killed 15 people and injured 40 others.<\/p>\n

\"Posters<\/p>\n

Posters of the alleged Bondi shooter have appeared across Melbourne. Picture: Peter Drew\/Instagram.<\/p>\n

Lord Mayor Nick Reece told NewsWire the original posters were a \u201cpowerful provocation about Australia\u2019s history and national identity\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are also great art,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis posters are a good example of the role contemporary street art can play in politics as a means of social activism.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the hijacked posters were \u201cclearly a deliberate and organised exercise to shock and spread hate\u201d and had been removed from the walls.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Drew\u2019s work to be hijacked and appropriated into images of hatred and division is absolutely abhorrent,\u201d Mr Reece explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo use the image of the Bondi shooter is just sick. Families are still grieving, the community is still grieving, 15 people died \u2013 including a 10-year-old girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/p>\n

Some other \u2018Aussie\u2019 posters have been vandalised. Picture: ABC<\/p>\n

He said there was \u201cno possible universe\u201d where the copycat posters could be interpreted as an \u201cartistic response to the original series\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was clearly a deliberate and organised exercise to shock and spread hate, and we are not going to tolerate that crap on the walls of our city,\u201d Mr Reece said.<\/p>\n

He said the posters had been removed by the council within an hour of being reported.<\/p>\n

\"Copycat<\/p>\n

Copycat posters have been plastered across the city. Picture: ABC<\/p>\n

He said CCTV vision showed the perpetrators \u201care clearly visible\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 50 posters were plastered around the city. The detail we have suggests it was a co-ordinated effort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur approach is \u2018whatever it takes\u2019. We are not going to tolerate hateful, racist material on the streets of our city, for even one hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Reece said Victoria Police had been notified about the posters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mayor of Melbourne has slammed vandals who hijacked an art series across Melbourne celebrating the country\u2019s multiculturalism,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134,235337],"class_list":["post-456872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-posters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}