Deborah Thomas, chief of Dreamworld parent company Ardent Leisure, has revealed threats made against her and her family in the wake of last week’s theme park tragedy.

Ms Thomas, who announced she would donate her $167,000 cash bonus to the families of the four victims, told the Australian Financial Review she had received some “pretty nasty threats”.

“We’ve had some concerns for the safety of our family,” she said, adding the threats had been directed to the NSW police.

Ms Thomas conceded Ardent Leisure had made mistakes in its response to the crisis, including discussing her pay and annual bonus at the company’s annual general meeting last week.

“If, heaven forbid we ever had to do this again, the decisions we made would be very different,” Ms Thomas told the paper .

The company was heavily criticised last week after it was revealed Ms Thomas had not been in contact with the families of the victims killed when the Thunder River Rapids ride malfunctioned.

Given their time again, Ms Thomas said Ardent Leisure would still have communicated with the families through the police, but would have pushed the police to “move more quickly”.

“That is the respectful thing to do … rather than just hit them (the families of the deceased) with a mobile phone call out of the blue,” she said.

The park’s operators have not yet indicated when Dreamworld will re-open, but have said it will not be until after the funerals of the victims.