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		</div><p>Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has weighed in on the debate surrounding the removal of controversial memorials of historic figures, saying people need to “respect history”.</p>
<p>His comments come after a website calling for the removal of memorials of figures that “celebrate slavery and racism” listed Captain James Cook as one of its targets.</p>
<p>The Topple the Racists website describes Cook, who charted the east coast of Australia 250 years ago, as “a colonialist who murdered Maori people in their homeland”.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">I really hope no one tears down the Captain Cook statue, it would be such a shame ð³ <a href="https://t.co/p4bRZACpAy">pic.twitter.com/p4bRZACpAy</a></p>
<p>&mdash; 𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯 𦷠𝔅𝔏𝔐 (@tccthing) <a href="https://twitter.com/tccthing/status/1269945615074512896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2020</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>Speaking on Australia’s 2GB radio show Ben Fordham Live, Mr Morrison said people need to acknowledge the “positive and the negative” when it comes to historical figures.</p>
<p>“I have always said we have to be honest about our history,” he said.</p>
<p>“We have got to acknowledge the positive and the negative but I think we also have got to respect our history as well and this is not a licence for people to just go nuts on this stuff.”</p>
<p>Mr Morrison, who represents a federal electorate named after Cook, added he felt that the Black Lives Matter movement has been overtaken by political agendas.</p>
<p>“Australia, when it was founded as a settlement as New South Wales, was on the basis that there would be no slavery,” he said.</p>
<p>“And so I think what we are seeing with some of these protests, they start on a fair point when they are raising issues about people’s treatment in custody or things like that, fair issue, but now it’s been taken over by other much more politically-driven, left-wing agendas which are seeking to take advantage of these opportunities to push their political causes.”</p>
<p>His comments come less than a day after the mayor of Middlesbrough in England said Teessiders are proud of Cook and statues of the explorer should not be removed.</p>
<p>Andy Preston praised the explorer and navigator – who has a statue in his home town, as well as in Great Ayton and Whitby, in North Yorkshire – as “the most successful Teessider in history”.</p>
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