In news that will shock literally none of you, Racing NSW has added further ridiculous intrigue to the on-going Sydney Opera House saga, revealing that they initially wanted to use the Sydney Harbour Bridge to promote an upcoming race until Premier Gladys Berejiklian and the NSW State Government suggested the Opera House instead.
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Racing NSW boss Peter V’landys this morning detailed how his organisation had been negotiating with at least four different Government bodies for over a year with the intent to use the Harbour Bridge to promote the Everest Cup. At the last minute, the permits were denied, with the NSW State Government offering up the Sydney Opera House as the alternative option.
The whole thing blew up after Opera House chief executive Louise Herron blocked the decision, leading to the now-infamous bullying from Alan Jones – who has extremely strong financial ties to the racing industry, including two business partners who have horses in the Everest Cup would you even believe – and the almost-immediate cave in from the historically spineless Berejiklian Government.
Despite clear indications to the contrary, V’landys played dumb and insisted Racing NSW had never intended to use the Opera House’s iconic sails as a billboard – which it will be. Rather, he says, he “just wanted what other sports, and cultural events, had been afforded as a way to highlight to the world that Sydney is a seriously great place for events.” Even though the graphics proposed for the Opera House stunt flagrantly fly in the face of the landmark’s written terms, which state no text, logo, or corporate branding be used are to be projected onto the House’s structure.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison again weighed in on this issue this morning on 2GB with a braying Alan Jones; jovially laughing while Jones likely stroked his own engorged neck fat, plump and beat-red from the giddy thrill of another successful tug at the strings of an inanimate marionette State Government which he alone apparently controls.
I just don’t understand why we tie ourselves up in knots about these things. It’s not as though they’re painting it on there, there are lights flashing up there for a brief period of time.
This, a day after Morrison referred to the Opera House as “the biggest billboard Sydney has.”
Despite fervent assertion this is all completely normal, and despite the somehow-even-more enfeebled NSW Labor party seemingly having no problem with any of this, Racing NSW’s proposed display on the Opera House has reportedly been significantly wound back amid growing public anger over the whole shebang.
I tell you, who could have possibly seen any of this coming in Sydney, of all cities.
There was literally no way to have foreseen it at all.
