Protocol

I did my best last week to get a quiet message to the Burwood Police Local Area Commander about the correct treatment of the state flag that they "fly" outside the Five Dock station (Five Dock reports to the Burwood LAC). The flag has not been taken down in months, even though that is a breach of flag protocol. In fact, until I arranged for Canada Bay Council to cut back the tree that had grown around the flag pole, the flag was simply left tangled in the branches.

It is now a tattered wreck, looking like regimental colours after the Battle of Waterloo.

Apparently the Superintendent at Burwood was less than happy with my request, and more so, he's done nothing about it.

I've just left a message with the officer in the Department of Premier and Cabinet who hopefully takes care of these things. I've asked them to arrange a new flag for the station, and to provide the officers there with a book on how to treat it properly.

I feel like I am reduced to wiping the bottoms of infants.

What disturbs me most about this is that surely the Police station must be equipped with a set of written daily routines or procedures. That is, the first person to open the station in the morning should be going through a checklist to ensure that the station is in a fit state, and the last person out the door at night should be going through a closure checklist. There should also be a checklist for shift changeover. Every business that I have ever worked in has had checklists like this to ensure that staff do things properly and don't forget things. They are used to keep the workplace in a clean and manageable state.

If such checklists exist (and I hope they do), then presumably each one would have something to say about the flag. ie, put it up when the station opens, and take it down at night and store it properly. Pretty simple really.

If they have it on the checklists and aren't following each step, then management needs to give the person in charge a boot up the backside. If they don't have any checklists at all, then management needs a boot up the backside.