Greg Petty, an independent, has also dismissed claims the galvanised steel required for street signposts – 50mm nominal bore – can’t be made in Australia. 

“Australian companies could manufacture that gal post. Any company can do it today,” Cr Petty said.

“The cost of production versus the cost of the imported product makes it uneconomical for any local company to manufacture the product. It is not an issue of local availability, it is an issue of high production costs.”

Cr Petty’s comments came after the Mercury revealed a galvanised steel pole, marked as being manufactured in Vietnam, was spotted in a Warrawong laneway. 

The post was erected by the council during a recent upgrade to the lane behind the Open Hearth Hotel. 

Wollongong MP Paul Scully demanded answers from the council as to why the steel wasn’t sourced from the nearby Port Kembla steelworks and how it could “justify trying to cover it up”.

The city’s lord mayor, Gordon Bradbery, said the galvanised pipe required was “not among the products produced by BlueScope Steel”.

Cr Bradbery also described the post as peculiar because others at the council’s depots had no origin of manufacture printed on them. He said the pole in Warrawong would “be replaced with a pole not bearing any markings”.

The lord mayor accused Mr Scully of “making a lot of noise out of nothing” and described claims the council was trying to cover-up the post’s origin as a “beat-up”.

Cr Petty said both were “politically point-scoring”. 

“We don’t need politicians to solve this, we need people that understand business, that have been at the coal face,” he said.

Cr Petty has been in the road sign/marking industries since 1981, as a supplier and manufacturer of signs and an importer of materials. He owns Rayolite at Unanderra.