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Outrage as NSW premier allows Sydney Opera House to be used as ‘billboard’

Projections lit up the Sydney Opera House for Vivid Festival.

Projections lit up the Sydney Opera House for Vivid Festival. Photo: AAP

The iconic sails of Sydney Opera House will be used to advertise the Everest horse race, after New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian overruled the decision of Opera House chief executive Louise Herron.

The humiliating smackdown of Ms Herron – who had refused Racing NSW’s request to promote the Everest logo on the Opera House – followed an ugly on-air clash between Ms Herron and Sydney shock jock Alan Jones.

Ms Berejeklian’s shock decision on Friday evening immediately drew outrage, anger and disbelief on social media.

In the shocking interview on Friday morning, Ms Herron had told Mr Jones the building was a UNESCO World Heritage building, saying that designation would be jeopardised if used as a projection billboard for the Everest race, to be held at Randwick on October 13.

“We have a policy that protects our world heritage status,” she told the top-rated 2GB morning host.

“We would be seen in the global community as not respecting this jewel, this masterpiece of human creative genius that is the greatest building of the 20th Century.”

Ms Herron had agreed to allow Racing New South Wales to project the jockeys’ colours onto the Opera House to promote the $13 million race, the richest in Australia.

But she swore there would be no display of the horses’ names, their numbers, the Everest name or commercial logos.

That wasn’t anywhere near good enough for Jones, who launched one of his blistering trademark attacks as the arts administrator struggled to get a word in edgeways.

“People reading The Daily Telegraph this morning would be thinking ‘who the hell do you think you are, you don’t own the Opera House, we own it…you manage it,” Mr Jones thundered.

“You don’t have a right to fence it off.

“If I were Gladys Berejiklian I’d pick up the phone and sack you today.”

Ms Herron hung tough, vowing “What we won’t do is put text or videos of horses numbers or names, or the Everest logo, on the Opera House sails.

“It’s not a billboard.”

Or most of it, at any rate.

Late on Friday afternoon, Ms Berejiklian appears to have strong-armed Ms Herron into accepting the promotion, just minus the horses’ names.

The Everest logo, however, will be projected, as will the numbers.

Fairfax Media reported that a spokesperson for Ms Berejiklian would neither confirm nor deny that she had spoken with Jones after the blistering on-air clash.

“We have a policy that protects our world heritage status,” she told the top-rated 2GB morning host.

Sydney Architecture Festival event director and NSW Architects Registration Board registrar Tim Horton said Ms Herron spoke at the festival on Saturday about respecting the original vision of Sydney Opera House architect, Jørn Utzon.

“When you’re running a public building that is one of the world’s top five public buildings, you need to strike a balance with public access in the age of social media in a more casual world,” Mr Horton told The New Daily.

“The [Sydney] Opera House knows that line between what is public access and what that means versus it becoming a billboard.”

Mr Horton said the iconic Sydney building was the only 20th century building in the world on UNESCO’s world heritage list.

“It’s been declared such a rare jewel and is described by world governments as a masterpiece of human endeavours.”

The Jones interview followed a front page story in The Daily Telegraph in which Racing NSW Peter V’landys accused the Opera House management of elitism.

But the radio host’s approach with Ms Herron seemed to attract almost unanimous condemnation on social media.

Chief political correspondent for The Conversation, Michelle Grattan called the interview “unacceptably abusive” while The New Daily’s Michael Pascoe questioned Mr Jones’ inflated sense of power in Sydney.

Public relations director Nicole Reaney of InsideOut PR told The New Daily Mr Jones had a long-held reputation of not shying away from controversy, but sounded “unreasonably aggressive”.

“Given journalists are supposed to have an objective stance when they are interviewing, it sounds like it was more aggressive and he was personalising the interview,” Ms Reaney said.

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