The recent discovery of a post, marked as being made in Vietnam, caused uproar after it exposed Wollongong City Council’s use of an imported product just a stone’s throw from BlueScope’s Port Kembla steelworks. 

Wollongong MP Paul Scully accused the council, who erected the sign in a Warrawong laneway, of failing to support the steel industry in its own backyard.

In response, Wollongong lord mayor Gordon Bradbery said the galvanised steel post used was “not among the products produced by BlueScope Steel”.

Ian Cairns, the Australian Steel Institute’s national manager of industry development and government relations, said the claim the galvanised steel post couldn’t be made locally was “simply not true”.

Mr Cairns said Arrium and Orrcon, owned by BlueScope, produced the steel needed to make the posts.

“We’ve got galvanisers, we’ve got street sign manufacturers, we’ve got everybody in the supply chain who can make that stuff, there’s no question about that whatsoever,” he told the Mercury.

Mr Cairns said the steel was produced by “two or three plants”, including Orrcon.

“What they do with a pole, essentially, is that it comes from flat product. It’s flat product first and then it’s rolled into a post,” he said.

“I think the council needs to understand the product that makes the pole comes from Port Kembla; that flat product that’s rolled into the pole all comes from Port Kembla.

“They don’t actually make the post or the pole at Port Kembla, but all the steel comes from there.”

Cr Bradbery said the Warrawong pole, sourced from Sydney-based De Neefe signs, was peculiar because others in council’s depots had no origin of manufacture markings.

He said it would be replaced with a nondescript version. Mr Cairns said the council’s plan to replace the pole was “ludicrous”.

“It’s pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes,” he said.

“To think that there’s one pole from Vietnam and they’re going to replace it … and wipe their hands clean is just ludicrous.

“If there’s one out there, there’s a thousand out there.”