Flag replaced with undies and shoes

Te Puke War Memorial Hall patron Maureen Oliver and manager Lydia Wilkinson check out the recently spruced up.

A version of the proposed new flag being flown on a Bay building was ripped down and replaced with a couple of pairs of underwear and a pair of shoes hanging from the flag pole.

Te Puke War Memorial Hall manager Lydia Wilkinson said the flag, which was flown from a flag pole on the top of the building which is more than 11m high, was removed and replaced with the shoes and underwear sometime between Friday night and Monday morning when one of the committee members noticed it.

The hall was flying both the current New Zealand flag and the proposed alternative as part of the Government initiative to allow people to see both flags flying side-by-side.

Ms Wilkinson said she had not had any feedback from flying both flags until now.

"I'm guessing this is somebody's opinion and they are letting us well and truly know," she said.

The flagpole the flag was on had also been "destroyed" and would need to be replaced, she said.

She said the internal height of the building was 11m and the outside would be higher so the vandal would have had to have been quite fit to clamber up on to the roof.

She had figured out how they managed to get up their and were reviewing CCTV footage from that side of the building.

Police had also been to fingerprint the hall today.

"It puts pressure on us. The hall is a not-for-profit organisation. All the funds we make we put back into the hall...It's a real nuisance."

Ms Wilkinson said she was determined to find out who did it and prosecute them.