Staffer's Confederate flag shirt slammed

The decision of a senior Northern Territory bureaucrat to wear a Confederate flag to a recent dinner was totally inappropriate, Senator Nova Peris says.

Mark Coffey, the NT manager in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, won best dressed man at the annual Central Australian Beef Breeders dinner on Saturday in a shirt emblazoned with the Confederate flag, the American Civil War emblem linked to white supremacy and racism.

"We're trying to move on from those days, we're trying to build a more inclusive country.... I think wearing that - I call it a costume - you have to think you're going to draw criticism, and rightly so," Ms Peris said.