South Australian police have launched an investigation after a racist banner was unfurled by a masked group allegedly performing Nazi salutes on a bridge over a major road in Adelaide's north.
SA Police said the banner was displayed over a Welcome to the City of Salisbury sign on a bridge crossing Main North Road at 6:30am on Thursday.
The City of Salisbury said the banner, which was displayed on a bridge near Malinya Drive, was reported to the Department of Infrastructure and Transport and has been removed.
Salisbury Mayor, Gillian Aldridge, told ABC Radio Adelaide's Stacey Lee and Nikolai Beilharz that the display was "disturbing".
She said Salisbury was a "welcoming" and "proud" multicultural community, with more than a quarter of the city's population born overseas.
"We are so fortunate in Salisbury because it's like a visit to the world when you come into Salisbury … it's a beautiful, friendly place as we are very welcoming," Ms Aldridge said.
"So when you see something like this by a few people — that hurts a lot of people. It's very disturbing.
"We want to get on with making it [Salisbury] the best community in the state. We don't need this rubbish."
Playford Labor MP, John Fulbrook, said his staff had reported the "outrageous" and "hurtful" sign to police.
"We are proud to be a multicultural community that supports our neighbours, irrespective of something so simple-minded as the colour of someone's skin," he wrote on Facebook.
"Unlike the person/people that placed this banner, I, and the overwhelming majority of the decent folk that call the north home, refuse to hate."
Multicultural Communities Council of SA chief executive officer, Helena Kyriazopoulos, said Adelaide's multicultural communities would be "appalled" by the behaviour.
"It's unacceptable. I just can't understand in this day and age that this type of behaviour still exists and we're still discussing it," she said.
"The communities are all very welcoming. I just don't know why a small group of people just thought this was acceptable."
Last year, police said they were investigating an image of hooded men performing a fascist salute outside the Adelaide Holocaust Museum, which a week earlier, was targeted by an anti-Semitic sticker.
Months earlier, residents in parts of Adelaide reported receiving flyers from the neo-Nazi group European Australian Movement, which included racist and white supremacist propaganda.
