The former chief executive of the Opera House has described the decision to allow the promotion of a horse race on the sails of the building as “crass, inappropriate and offensive”.
“I find it extraordinary that the state politicians on both sides have somehow decided that this is in the interests of Sydney, New South Wales or Australia to corrupt the way the Opera House works, to corrupt art integrity of the building and to be able to use it in any way a politician wants,” Michael Lynch told ABC radio on Monday. Lynch ran the Opera House from 1998 to 2002.
“I would not regard myself as precious or elitist and I just find the lily-livered approach by the politicians on this issue [and] the nexus between the gambling bodies and the politicians seriously disturbing.”
The NSW government’s decision on Friday night to order the Opera House to accept an application from Racing NSW came after a public campaign by the rightwing broadcaster Alan Jones and despite Opera House management saying the proposal contravened a policy to prevent the building’s commercialisation.
It has prompted an outcry amid concerns about the use of the building – a petition opposing the decision had reached 170,000 signatures on Monday afternoon.
On Monday afternoon the National Trust NSW conservation director, Graham Quint, said he believed projecting commercial material onto the sails contravened state laws.
“They’ve gone with a decision that we think probably is not legal,” Quint told AAP. “It may be in breach of the Heritage Act.”
Quint said the legislation made clear that projecting colours and images onto the sails should be “confined to exceptional, non-commercial occasions of brief duration”.
Racing NSW’s board held an urgent meeting on Monday after receiving what were described as “threats” that raised serious security concerns for Tuesday’s proposed event to announce the barrier draw for the Everest Cup.
A spokesman declined to elaborate on what sort of threats, but said Racing NSW, as the sport’s administrator, was taking them seriously and deciding what to do.
The racing organisation had planned to hold a high-profile event to be attended by racing figures and politicians. It was believed to be scheduled to be held at the Opera House, where, at the same time, the barrier draw was to be projected on to the sails of the building.
Racing NSW is attempting to turn the Everest Cup, which has the world’s highest prize pool of $13m, into an event that will rival the Melbourne Cup on the international racing calendar. But the furore over whether it constitutes commercial exploitation of the Opera House or legitimate promotion of an event has marred the lead-up to the event.
The head of the Opera House, Louise Herron, has said the proposal risked the building’s world heritage listing. A spokesman for Unesco told the Guardian: “The World Heritage Centre is looking into this and will not comment before it finds out all the details.”
On Monday the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, stood by the decision, saying the government “would never support anything we though diminished the iconic statute of the Opera House”.
“I am pleased the version we have landed on is a big compromise and it is different to what the government was presented with earlier on,” she said.
“I want to state at the outset it is very good to have these great debates about what is important [but] I am incredibly comfortable with the decision we have landed at. All sides of politics support the decision and we are proceeding with it on that basis.”
But Lynch said using the Opera House to “flog some shoddy horse race” was a contravention of the government’s responsibilities.
“It’s similar to the idea of suddenly putting ads over all the ABC venues,” he said.
“It’s just not the way you run a building that has been world heritage listed. It took us over 20 years to secure that world heritage listing. There are conditions and legal restrictions that the NSW government as owner of the site have entered into and now they’ve just said we don’t care about that, we’re not going to do that any more.”
In a widely criticised interview on Friday, Jones berated Herron, saying “Who the hell do you think ... who do you think you are?”
On Monday he went further, describing Herron as a “tyrant” and accusing her of double standards for opposing the advertisement because the building had already been commercialised via a Samsung partnership in 2013.
“Many people have had problems with the same lady in the past. I won’t go into those problems now. But plenty of correspondence [sic] has talked to me about her being a tyrant,” he said.
“Well done, Louise, have you told your leftwing mates that no one has commercialised the Opera House more than you? What’s the issue with the Everest?”
Over the weekend the prime minister, Scott Morrison, backed the decision to allow advertising for the race, calling it “commonsense” and said he did not understand “why people are getting so precious about it”.
“This is one of the biggest events of the year,” he said. “Why not put it on the biggest billboard Sydney has?”
The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, criticised Morrison’s description on Monday, but declined to answer directly whether he agreed with the decision to allow advertising.
“I don’t think most Australians, when they think about the Opera House, think of it as a billboard,” Shorten said. “To me, the Opera House is a representation of Australia’s capacity to build splendid things. Unlike prime minister Morrison, I don’t look at the Opera House and see a billboard, I see a remarkable Australian achievement.”
Lynch said Morrison was “kidding himself”.
“I think he should be preparing himself to go back to a job in tourism driving a bus post the next election, because I don’t think its appropriate that the prime minister interferes into a state-owned organisation.”
Morrison was the managing director of Tourism Australia before going into politics.