By The rioters who turned Melbourne into a battleground left dozens of white supremacist stickers in their wake.
A non-Protestant Melburnian was disgusted to find stickers in nearby Westgate Park the next morning, reading “Australia for the White Man”.
“If you’ve got five minutes free and you’re close to Westgate Park, it’s absolutely littered with that,” he wrote online.
The racist sticker the Melbourne resident found in Westgate Park (pictured) was one of 30 they removed on the route of anti-lockdown rallies in the city
He videotaped one of them and crumpled it up, explaining that he and his friends found and abducted at least 30 of them in the park.
People who commented on the post said they have also seen the stickers litter the streets and parks of Melbourne for weeks.
“I’ve been working in parks and cleaning up shit like this for months… but people are quick to point it out or help clean up too. Thank you for your help, â€wrote one.
‘Thanks for sharing, I’ll be on the lookout for these now. I’m so used to seeing parts of the city sticker bombarded that I don’t always pay attention to what they say. I will do it now so that I can demolish them, â€added another.
“The ironic people who support right-wing nationalism talk about the way Australia was and traditional values, but tend to forget the bloodshed by generations past fighting Nazi ideology,” said a third.
Other reviewers said they spotted the stickers on the Maribyrnong River Trail and in St Kilda, Northcote, Thornbury, Kensington and Flemington.
Riot police form a wall as they wait for protesting construction workers on the West Gate Bridge on Tuesday afternoon
Thousands of construction workers are pictured protesting on the West Gate Bridge Tuesday afternoon as the protest rolled out of the CBD
On Wednesday, the third day the lawless mobs took to the streets of Melbourne, thousands marched over the city’s war memorial where they set up camp, using the sacred site as a shield to taunt against the police.
Protesters, demanding an end to mandatory vaccines for the construction industry, along with a list of other demands, stormed the Shrine of Remembrance in Victoria.
The memorial was built to honor the ANZAC soldiers who served in World War I.
Some protesters were decked out in bulletproof vests ready to clash with police to enforce Covid public health orders that prevent gatherings.
The crowd shouted for officers not to arrest them out of “respect for the ANZACS” and sang the national anthem.
Police in riot gear were ready to fire tear gas to disperse the crowd, but an hour after the start of the protest had stopped and instead told the crowd to disperse or be arrested.
Cops wearing riot gear and holding shields surrounded protesters during the tense clash on Wednesday afternoon at the war memorial
Protesters set up a camp at the Melbourne War Memorial using the sacred site as a shield so that police do not fire tear gas at them out of respect for the fallen Anzacs
Only a small group left with the police and then moved on to the remaining group and arrested them one by one.
Many, including Victorian Prime Minister Daniel Andrews, have said that while there was legitimate trade among the protesters, the group had been co-opted by far-right and conspiracy theory groups.
“I think there were people there who you thought were in the construction industry,” Andrews said.
“There were others who weren’t from the building. They are not there to protest, they are there to fight, pretend to protest. They come from very different backgrounds.
Victorian-era Health Minister Martin Foley on Tuesday defended the late decision to shut down construction in closed areas of Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Mitchell Shire and Surf Coast.
An official government statement announcing the general closure, effective at midnight, was not released until 10 p.m. Monday.
Riot police are seen outside Victoria’s Parliament during Tuesday’s protest, which came a day after violent protesters damaged CFMEU’s headquarters in Melbourne’s CBD
A protester stands next to a flare at Tuesday’s protest as thousands of traders wearing high-visibility clothing rallied against lockdowns and mandatory vaccines for the industry
Mr Foley said the government had warned for weeks that the sector could be shut down due to outbreaks linked to the predominantly young and mobile construction workforce.
“The public health team had no choice but to press the pause button and continue to work with the industry over the next two weeks to improve compliance,” he told the journalists.
There are 337 cases directly linked to 154 construction sites, he said.
Of these 239 cases, they are linked to sites in the Melbourne metropolis, including nine people living in the Victoria area.
Industrial Relations Minister Tim Pallas said inspectors have visited thousands of job sites over the past week and around half are not complying with sanitary instructions.
“Large-scale non-compliance in the industry posed a threat to public health in the most dramatic terms,” ​​he said.
Both Mr Foley and Mr Pallas condemned the violent protests, the former describing them as “an insult to all Victorians who did the right thing”.