AN agenda item dealing with Mornington Peninsula Shire’s flag policy, set for this week’s council meeting (Tuesday 22/7), has been pulled to allow more time to ensure the policy “matches the intent” of councillors.
The flag policy review comes after a furore when it was discovered a flyer produced by the shire encouraging families to register their children in the shire’s kinder programs included the Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and Pride flags – but not the Australian flag (Kinder flyer flag snub prompts councillors to take over, The News 10/6/25).
Cr Bruce Ranken raised the matter as an urgent business motion at the council’s 2 June meeting, noting the issue had “understandably raised concerns amongst many members of the community”.
His motion called for the shire to review its current flag protocols across all shire-managed properties and to “ensure the Australian national flag is displayed in the highest position of honour”, as well as be the “most prominent flag” whenever a flag is shown. The motion also asked that the shire’s flag policy be revised within 60 days and be controlled by councillors thereafter, meaning it would be taken off the hands of council staff.
But the new flag policy, that was set to be presented to councillors at Tuesday’s meeting, retained the power to exclude the Australian Flag from “targeted communications” at the discretion of a shire staff member, the shire’s executive manager – advocacy, communications and engagement, Randal Mathieson.
Councillors have told The News they believe the draft policy is not in line with the intent of their June motion to have councillors control the flag policy but rather hands the power to a member of staff that would act as the shire’s “flag Tzar”, deciding when the Australian Flag should be excluded from communications.
The draft policy stated that “The Australian National Flag must be included and shown in the position of highest prominence, in accordance with the Protocols, unless the material is part of a targeted communication developed for a specific cultural or community audience”.
Targeted communications would include “materials developed for a defined audience such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Intersex or other culturally or linguistically diverse communities”.
The policy went on the explain that “In these cases, it may be more appropriate to display only the flag or flags relevant to that audience. This supports cultural safety and respectful representation and may help avoid unintended impacts associated with broader flag use”. The power to make the determination as to whether to exclude the Australian flag would be solely at the discretion of Mathieson, and would be beyond the scope of councillors and the shire’s CEO, Mark Stoermer.
Speaking to The News about the draft policy, shire mayor Cr Anthony Marsh said “The council resolution in June was unambiguous. The draft policy has been withdrawn to ensure it reflects council’s clear intent”. “It will return to a future meeting with the exemptions removed and the guidelines either embedded or published. “It’s disappointing that council has had to intervene twice on the Flag Policy in as many months. Our strategies and policies must reflect the intentions of council, as the elected representatives acting on behalf of the community.”
First published in the Mornington News – 22 July 2025
