The Australian flag is a symbol Gwen Beaton’s father gave his life for, yet today it can be found flying tattered and forlorn above an old office building on Griffith’s Yambil Street.
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While it is not illegal to fly a damaged Australian flag, under Australia’s national flag protocols the nation’s flag should not be flown “if it is damaged, faded or dilapidated” but for some time now the flag above the city’s old RTA building has flown - despite being all three of those things, and Mrs Beaton has finally had enough.
“I don’t think any flag should be left in that condition,” she said on Monday.
“It is shocking, it is a slap in the face for any returned serviceman or woman who has followed that flag into battle, but not just for them, for all Australians.”
Much of Mrs Beaton’s anger comes from the fact she knows first-hand the sacrifices made by so many on behalf of what the Australian flag stands for.
Her father Hugh Stanley Benson served in the Second World War and was captured and interned in a German prisoner of war camp.
While he managed to escape the POW camp and fight again he returned home never the same and with a number of health issues seeing her, her seven siblings and their mother lose him at just 49 years of age.
“He gave his life for that flag,” Mrs Beaton said as she gestured to the torn offering at the top of the flagpole.
“He never spoke of the war, but he was very affected by it.
“Today he would have been in his late 90s if he was still alive, but he had cancer all through his body due to malnutrition from the war.”
A Services NSW spokesman has said the organisation is working with building managers Property NSW to ensure the flag is removed or replaced in the coming days.
The spokesman assured there was no disrespect meant to veterans past or present and said the flag was an oversight when the property was vacated mid-last year.
But questions raised by the flag in Yambil Street go beyond who is responsible for maintenance to where the lack of respect and pride for the symbol of the nation has disappeared to.
The thought the flag may be the result of a population who care and value less what the Australian flag represents was unbearable, Mrs Beaton said.
“I would hate to think that, I would be really heartbroken,” she said.
“We were taught in school to stand up and salute your flag, well I can’t stand up often nowadays but I would stand up for that.”
“I just hope they take it down.”
It is a theme that seems to resonate with others in the city, with a man walking past on Monday morning stopping to ask if Mrs Beaton was the one who had posted their concerns about the flag to Facebook.
He lived close by he said and had also been dismayed by the flag’s condition.
