Federal Labor MP for Griffith Renee Coffey has joined members of the public to remove graffiti placed over a series of historic “Aussie” posters in Brisbane, saying the community response showed there was little tolerance for racism in her electorate.
The posters, part of artist Peter Drew’s long-running Aussie series, feature archival images of non-white Australians from the era of the White Australia Policy and are intended to challenge narrow ideas about who can be considered Australian.
The National Museum of Australia has previously described the series as using archival portraits of people who sought exemptions from the dictation test that applied to non-British migrants entering Australia, while the National Gallery of Victoria says Drew’s work is designed to draw attention to historical and contemporary xenophobia and racism.
Among the people depicted in the series are Indian, Chinese and other non-European Australians who lived in Australia during a period when immigration law was explicitly designed to restrict non-white migration.
One of the posters features Bella Singh, an Indian man whose archival record is held by the National Archives of Australia. Drew’s official site identifies Singh as one of the subjects in the latest Aussie poster series.
The Brisbane posters were altered late last week, with labels including “Indian”, “Chinese” and “not” placed over the word “Aussie”.
The intervention was promoted online by two right-wing activists who described their actions as an attempt to push back against multicultural messaging and said they had “fixed” the posters.
Ms Coffey, the federal Labor member for Griffith, later went to the site and helped remove the added material from the posters.
In a social media post, she thanked members of the public who stopped to assist.
“Thank you to Jacob and Scott for stopping to help and bringing a decent ladder and paint scraper!” she wrote.
“Thanks also to all the people who shouted ‘thank you’ from their cars.”
The action placed Ms Coffey directly in the middle of a broader debate about multiculturalism, national identity and the political use of street art.
Ms Coffey has a longstanding background in anti-racism and reconciliation work. Her official Labor biography says she established Young Australians for Anti Racism and Reconciliation while still at high school, later led Reconciliation SA and worked for more than 13 years with the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.
She was elected as the federal member for Griffith in 2025 and currently represents the inner-south Brisbane electorate in the House of Representatives.
Drew’s Aussie project began in 2016 and has since become one of Australia’s most recognisable street-art campaigns.
The posters generally feature large archival portraits accompanied by the single word “AUSSIE”, deliberately placing people from culturally diverse backgrounds within the visual language of Australian identity.
Drew told the ABC earlier this year that he had revived the project a decade after it first began, saying its purpose remained to challenge assumptions about who belongs in Australia.
The National Museum of Australia has previously exhibited the series, explaining that many of the people depicted had been born in Australia or had lived in the country for years but were still required to obtain exemptions from the dictation test before travelling overseas, because they risked being denied re-entry under the immigration rules of the time.
The dictation test was one of the central mechanisms of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 and was used as part of the broader White Australia Policy.
Under the system, non-European residents could face barriers to re-entering Australia. These barriers persist even after they have lived and worked there for years.
The historical context is central to Drew’s work.
The posters do not portray migration as a recent phenomenon. Instead, they highlight Indian, Chinese, and other non-European communities in Australia during the early decades of Federation.
Drew says the project was prompted in part by anti-immigration and anti-Muslim sentiment. It aimed to encourage Australians to reconsider assumptions about race and national identity.
The NGV says the work has appeared on walls across Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane and regional towns, with the series using historical portraits to confront both past and present racism.
The vandalism in Brisbane has also reignited debate over whether altering political street art should itself be considered political expression.
The activists responsible have presented their actions as satire and political commentary against multiculturalism, rather than racism.
However, critics have viewed the intervention very differently, arguing that replacing the word “Aussie” with ethnic labels sends the message that people of Indian or Chinese heritage cannot fully belong to Australia.
That tension is at the heart of the latest dispute.
For supporters of Drew’s work, the posters make a simple point: Australian identity has never been exclusively white or Anglo-Celtic.
For opponents, the campaign has become a symbol of what they regard as an ideological approach to multiculturalism and Australian history.
Ms Coffey’s decision to personally help restore the posters was therefore more than a clean-up exercise.
It was also a public statement about who she believes belongs within the Australian story.
Her intervention comes at a time when debates over immigration, multiculturalism and national identity have become increasingly prominent in Australian politics.
Drew himself has faced repeated attempts to remove or alter his work.
Last year he attended anti-immigration rallies with new versions of the Aussie posters after previous works had been torn down, saying he intended to keep using the project to challenge nationalist and exclusionary ideas about Australian identity.
In Brisbane, however, the response from passing motorists appeared to be immediate.
According to Ms Coffey, people driving past called out their thanks as she and others removed the material that had been pasted over the posters.
For the Griffith MP, the episode provided a visible demonstration of a position she has advocated since before entering federal politics — that race or ancestry should not determine whether someone is considered Australian.
The restored posters now again carry the message with which Drew intended them to confront passers-by: Aussie.
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