Take a stand on racism or send a message against violence: what should happen to the Nicky Winmar statue?

When former Western Australia premier, Mark McGowan attended the unveiling of a statue of the ex-AFL player Neil Elvis “Nicky” Winmar at Perth Stadium in July 2022, he said the Noongar man’s “powerful message” against racism “still resonates today”.

That statue, capturing the moment Winmar lifted his St Kilda jersey and pointed at his skin in response to racial abuse by spectators at a match in 1993, was swiftly removed last week, two days after he was found guilty of domestic violence charges in a Victorian court.

While condemnation of Winmar’s crime was universal, the decision to remove the monument sparked debate. Winmar is not the only person cast in bronze to have committed violent acts, nor the only AFL Hall of Fame footballer.

Some Indigenous leaders say the statue symbolised a moment that was bigger than Winmar himself, and that the WA government should have taken the time to consult before its snap decision. Others say that violence against women must always be swiftly condemned.

‘No longer appropriate’

The 60-year-old, who played 251 games of AFL from 1987 to 1999, was found guilty at the Bendigo magistrates court this month of two counts of common assault and one count of unlawful assault. He was acquitted on the fourth charge of intentionally causing injury. A pre-sentencing hearing will he held in August.

The charges concerned a woman who Winmar was in a relationship with, and who he assaulted in the small farming town of Cohuna in northern Victoria in May 2025. The woman, who cannot be identified, told the court that Winmar attacked her and became unexpectedly angry before he grabbed her arm, twisted it and then dragged her by the hair. She said Winmar pushed her against a wall, spitting and yelling in her face, and then bashing her head repeatedly into a wooden door.

The fallout from the guilty verdict has been swift and wide-reaching. The WA premier, Roger Cook, immediately ordered the removal of the statue of Winmar, saying: “Violence against women is never acceptable and it is important we send a strong message to the community.”

In a statement, the WA government says it is “no longer appropriate for that statue to be displayed”, and that it would be stored by VenuesWest “until a decision is made on its future”.

The AFL also confirmed they are now reviewing Winmar’s status as a member of the league’s Hall of Fame, to which he was inducted in 2022. However, the AFL did not respond when asked if it had also reviewed the status of Wayne Carey, another Hall of Fame player, who pleaded guilty in 1996 to indecent assault and was placed on a good-behaviour bond without conviction.

Gunditjmara woman Jill Gallagher is the longtime CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO) and a domestic violence survivor, who bears “lasting scars”. However, she told the Guardian the statue had a deeper meaning.

“I need to make it clear that I do not condone any form of violence,” Gallagher says, but adds: “the Nicky Winmar statue is more than a statue of a footballer, it’s a statue against racism”.

“There should have been more consultation and more thought put into it,” she says. “What he [Winmar] did, all those years ago, by lifting up his shirt and pointing to his black skin … it raised and elevated Aboriginal voices, and it still does elevate our voices.”

Muriel Bamblett, the director of Our Ways Strong Together, an Indigenous-led organisation advocating against family violence, says there is “no condoning” the violence Winmar had perpetuated, but that there should have been “greater community conversation” before removing it.

“The sad thing is, we talk about racial violence as well,” the Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung, and Boon Wurrung elder says. “The thing what Nicky stood up for was the level of racial violence that he was experiencing. I think, not being able to visually see that, or understand how important that lifting of the jumper was at that time is disappointing.”

However, Melbourne University professor Marcia Langton, a Yiman and Bidjara woman, says it would have been “highly offensive to women, to AFL fans and the wider AFL community” if the statue had remained.

“His achievements as a young player will not be forgotten,” Langton says. “His conviction for an assault against a woman requires that he is not celebrated in public in this way, so I agree with the removal of the statue.

“We have a choice here [how we respond]. We have a choice right now at this moment. Should we celebrate a man that’s been convicted of a serious assault against a … woman? No, we should not.”

Why this statue?

When Winmar defiantly lifted his guernsey at Melbourne’s Victoria Park in 1993, it forced the AFL to establish its first-ever official code of conduct, and ignited a national conversion of racism in Australian sports.

AFL historian Matthew Klugman, who co-wrote a biography of Winmar with Gary Osmond, said the decision to remove the statue was a missed opportunity for “truth-telling”, and accused the WA government of being “inconsistent” around the issue of removing statues of figures with chequered pasts. He compared it to the apology made to Noongar people by the WA governor, Chris Dawson, for the 1834 Pinjarra massacre. Up to 80 men, women, and children were killed in that massacre, led by then WA governor James Stirling – who remains memorialised in statues, suburbs and electorate names.

“You’ve got to have some broad overarching approach to matter like this, and if the Winmar statue is coming down, why hasn’t Stirling’s statue come down immediately?” Klugman says.

“For this to happen to that statue so quickly, shows that there is no excuse for slow action around other statues. The question is, is that the best thing to do to statues?”

Langton says a distinction should be drawn between the decision to remove Winmar’s statue and the ongoing debate about removing statues to colonial figures, including figures involved in the massacre of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

“Australia has to come to terms with that history, but that’s a different issue from this,” she says.