A South Australian council has threatened to pursue legal avenues against a ratepayer who labelled one of its employees a "wank stain" on social media.

The comment was part of a series of posts made by Moonta resident Brad Galloway, criticising the Copper Coast Council over what he labelled "revenue raising".

In July, the council deployed the Aero Ranger parking monitoring system at its three population centres — Kadina, Moonta and Wallaroo — to a mixed reaction from residents and traders.

The Aero Ranger system uses number plate recognition technology to enforce parking rules.

Statements 'harassing and offensive'​

In August, Mr Galloway wrote on a community Facebook page that the council had denied him a parking permit outside his home, located in a commercial zone with time restrictions.

"I received an email back … advising they won't be issuing a parking permit and I would need to park my vehicle away from my house," he said, referring in the same post to a council employee as a "wank stain".

"This won't be happening.



"We may even be able to get a class action going … to demonstrate to the f***kwits at the council, that they are hurting residents, business owners and the tourist revenue many businesses rely on."

Mr Galloway accused the council of "revenue raising" and hoped a class action would force it to provide parking permits for others like himself who lived in commercial zones.

He added that installing number plate recognition cameras was "grossly unethical", saying that people in rural areas were already "doing it tough".

A few days later, a law firm acting on behalf of the council sent Mr Galloway a letter calling his language "harassing", "offensive" and "may amount to defamatory imputations".

The firm said the council would consider potential legal action if he refused to delete the post.

It added that it would report "any continuing harassment" to South Australia Police.

"Whilst [the council] encourages interaction and appropriate public discourse … it will not tolerate abusive and harassing communications," the letter said.

The letter also asserted that the council did not have any discretion about some of the concerns raised by Mr Galloway because they were governed by local government legislation.

'Massive overreaction'​

Mr Galloway told the ABC he believed senior public servants should be open to criticism.

"You would like to think the council had better things to spend their money on than solicitors' letters defending ... their staff, because of a system that has got a lot of negative kickback from the community," he said.

"If you haven't got thick skin to handle criticism, you shouldn't have that job.

"It's a massive overreaction from council."



A council spokesperson said "any instance of offensive or threatening behaviour directed to staff" would not be accepted.

They added that Aero Ranger was introduced after a 12-month trial, "following repeated requests of local businesses for increased parking compliance".

"The system aims to improve parking availability for shoppers and visitors in our central business districts."

Parking tech deployed to provide 'fairer' approach​

More than 60 councils in Australia and New Zealand use Aero Ranger, according to the company's managing director John Colebrook.

A video on the company's website demonstrates the system installed on a council vehicle, automatically photographing overstayed cars.



Mr Colebrook said "councils that adopt [the system] are seeking a fairer and more balanced approach to compliance".

"Every potential infringement detected by the system is reviewed and confirmed by a human officer to ensure fairness, context and accuracy," he said.

"Aero Ranger enables councils to apply greater leniency by identifying genuine mistakes, such as forgetting to display a ticket or returning to the vehicle a few minutes after the scheduled time.

"The technology also allows rangers to concentrate on community-focused projects … rather than spending their days solely on parking enforcement."

Mr Galloway disputed the purported benefits and said it was "generally easy to find a park" in the council area outside of holiday periods.

"We're in a country town, and you need to exercise a certain amount of common sense in how the council deals with the public and how they raise revenue, and this is a very brutal approach to enforcing parking in the area," he said.

Copper Coast Council has not yet acted on the letter. Mr Galloway said he was prepared to challenge legal action in court.

Written by: George Yankovich, ABC News.