Central Coast Council reports death threats to police over Australian flag banner policy

Central Coast Council staff have copped a barrage of more than 30 hostile messages and abuse — including a chilling death threat — over its controversial Australian flag banner policy.

The Australia Day flag banners once flew proudly in West St Umina in previous years

Customer service staff have copped the brunt of the fallout over council’s controversial Australian flag banner policy, with one particularly menacing threat to “f..king kill ya” reportedly referred to police for investigation.

It comes as the seaside council’s administrator blamed Ausgrid for “changing its position” over the banners and the media’s “fake news” for whipping up a frenzy.

The council attracted national headlines for a draft policy on roadside banners, which banned the Australian flag from being hung from light poles.

The council said Ausgrid owned the poles and it agreed with council’s draft policy on the banner flags.

However the energy company denied it ever had a policy stipulating what banners could be hung from its assets as long as they didn’t contain advertising or political promotion.

Meanwhile Administrator Rik Hart’s handling of the “bannergate” affair — that has thrust the besieged Central Coast Council again into the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons — is nothing short of “embarrassing”.

That was the takeaway from last night’s meeting for Peninsula Chamber of Commerce president Matthew Wales who has been campaigning to hold council to account over its position on flying national flag banners from light poles along West St, Umina Beach, on Australia Day.

Mr Wales addressed the meeting and said the chamber first paid for the Australian flag banners only to be told they were “lost” and then inadvertently “thrown away”.

He said council had then gave the chamber successive reasons why it wasn’t planning to resume flying Australian flag banners because they were too costly and later that they didn’t meet federal flag-flying protocols.

The Australia Day flag banners once flew proudly in West St, Umina, in previous years.

He said council then stated the flying of banner flags “might offend” some elements of the community and lastly Ausgrid didn’t support it and they owned the poles.

An Ausgrid representative Frank Robertson also addressed the meeting and clarified “this is not entirely correct” and that the energy company’s policy was that it delegated the decision on which banners were flown from its poles to the local council on behalf of the community.

He said the only criteria was that the banners met standard safety requirements and did not contain any advertising or political promotion.

However Administrator Mr Hart and CEO David Farmer highlighted emails from Ausgrid staff which purportedly stated the energy giant had “changed its position” from when council wrote its draft banner policy to when last night’s business paper was released online.

Central Coast Council claims it has emails from Ausgrid which supported council's position not to fly Australian flags from its poles and then "changed its position". Picture: supplied

They said emails from Ausgrid in July and August supported council’s position that Australian flags were not suitable attachments to Ausgrid assets.

However they argued Ausgrid “changed its position” by the time it sent council another email on October 7 stating “it is the community working with council, not Ausgrid, that should determine what (banners) should be hung”.

Mr Hart also blasted the media for taking the word of one source as the “gospel truth” with “no desire to investigate the full story”.

“It is no wonder the world is deteriorating with the rise of this fake news,” he said.

Central Coast Council claims it has emails from Ausgrid which confirmed it "changed its position" in relation to the banners. Picture: supplied

However the Chamber’s Mr Wales said Mr Hart’s comments were “blame shifting of the worst kind” and questioned why Ausgrid would write to council stating it had changed its position.

He said it only took him 10 minutes online and one phone call to Ausgrid to learn the energy company never had such a policy banning Australian banner flags from its poles.

“Why would Ausgrid lie?” he said.

Ausgrid released a statement confirming it was not its policy to stipulate what types of banners were hung from its poles as long as they were not advertising or political promotion.

“The Australian flag does not contravene these terms,” the statement said.

THREATS REPORTED TO POLICE

Meanwhile Council’s Administrator Mr Hart told the Express Advocate more than 30 abusive messages and threats were received by the council over the matter from locals as well as people from all over the country.

Mr Hart said a number of the emails or voice recordings had been forwarded to the police for further investigations, with many staff members left upset or distressed.

“One staff member who received abuse was so upset about it, it’s been so unnecessary,” he said.

Central Coast Council Administrator Rik Hart is angry staff copped abuse and threats.

He described one of the worst threats made by a man over the phone to the customer service team.

The man called the council “f**king c**ts” and “chinese sympathisers”. He told the council staff member “I’ll f**king kill ya”.

“That particular phone call was referred to the police who are tracking the person down,” Mr Hart said.

Mr Hart said he was livid that one member of the community gave the impression that council was against flying the Australian flag with some media outlets running a story without seeking council’s position.

Up a flag pole: `bannergate’ has gripped the council

“These people making threats believe the council was against the Australian flag,” he said.

“It’s clear that council has never banned the Australian flag.”

The controversy came about after the draft policy was released with council indicating it had respected Ausgrid’s position not to fly flags from their banner poles.

“Our staff did the right thing,” Mr Hart said.

He said Ausgrid changed its mind and he voted to change the policy at Tuesday night’s council meeting to allow the Australian, Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander flags to fly simultaneously on Australia Day with council also increasing the number of “assets” that display flags across the coast.

“I am delighted by the outcome,” he said. “I am just outraged at how this false news got out there. It’s really caused a lot of distress.”