By Bridie Tanner,David Kirkpatrick

Copyright abc

A leaked email from a northern New South Wales council has caused outrage among a group of caravan owners facing eviction from four council-run parks.

The Clarence Valley Council internal email included an AI-generated illustration of a series of wrecking balls being ridden by smiling and cheering workers in hard hats smashing caravans.

The email was leaked amid a battle between long-term tenants of council-run caravan parks in Brooms Head, Iluka, Minnie Water and Wooli.

The van owners were given 120 days to vacate their casually leased sites in March because the council wanted to make the sites available for short-term tourists.

While the leases stipulated occupancy of 180 days or less, some owners had been living there on a permanent or semi-permanent basis.

A group of about 100 have been fighting the decision in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

Email ‘misinterpreted’

Clarence Valley Council general manager Laura Black said the email, which referenced the Miley Cyrus song Wrecking Ball, had been “misinterpreted”.

She said the email was a response to a call for ideas for a staff performance at Grafton’s annual Jacaranda Festival, which is themed “A Crowning Glory”.

The email began with: “Here are a few suggestions we have received already to get you thinking.”

“1. Play the song Wrecking Bally Miley Cyrus – Staff flying around on wrecking balls with crowns on knocking over caravans?? too soon? too sensitive? Maybe next year?”

Van owner Simon Chase, who faces eviction from the park in Iluka and leads a group of other owners appealing their eviction, said he was furious.

“For anyone to make fun of people losing their homes is an absolute disgrace,” he said.

Mr Chase said the email was sent anonymously by someone at the council to one of the members in the van owners group.

“It makes a cruel mockery of the distress and hardship inflicted on our elderly and vulnerable residents whose livelihoods, health and family traditions have already been shattered,” he said.

Idea rejected

Ms Black said the wrecking ball email was one of “three or four” ideas put forward for a performance by staff at the annual Jacaranda Festival — an idea that was ultimately rejected.

“Each year a small number of staff take the lead and they instigate a few ideas usually based on recent events that have caught the eye of the community and they share those ideas,” Ms Black said.

Ms Black said no staff would be reprimanded for the wrecking ball email but they would take “learnings” from it.

“All humans make errors,” she said.

“In hindsight, when you look at it, I understand why [staff] thought that it would be potentially offensive to some, why they thought it was insensitive and definitely that they thought it would be misinterpreted.”