THE most senior indigenous affairs bureaucrat in the Territory won best-dressed man at the annual Central Australian Beef Breeders dinner wearing Confederate battle flag, offensive to many because of its connection to slavery and white supremacist groups.

Mark Coffey, who is the Northern Territory manager in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, is understood to have upset some with his attire on Saturday night, but clearly not enough to sway the votes against him.

Mr Coffey declined to comment when contacted yesterday by the NT News.

This year’s ball, in Alice Springs, took the theme of July 4, the United States’ celebrated anniversary of independence.

“I don’t think he deliberately set out to be controversial, I just don’t think he really thought about it,” a person at the ball said.

“But the fact is in his position he needs to be a little more thoughtful about these things. He was a bit remiss not to consider it might offend people, especially so close to the Charleston massacre and the whole white supremacist thing over there.

“It’s quite a hot topic around town, too, with the vigilante group and the like.”

The flag was first flown by the pro-slavery Confederacy during the American Civil War, fought in large measure over the rights of land owners to keep black slaves.

It has since been displayed as a symbol of southern American pride, but has also been co-opted by white supremacist groups.

Most recently, Dylann Roof, who killed nine people in a racially motivated attack inside a historic black church in the United States’ city of Charleston this month, posed with the flag shortly before the massacre.

Most Americans are opposed to the flag, but it took the Charleston killing for it to be removed from some government buildings in the southern states and for Walmart to ban its sale.

In Alice Springs, abhorrent Facebook comments to a call-to-arms from a self-proclaimed paramilitary group has recently stirred racial tensions.

The office of Prime Minister Tony Abbott did not return calls.