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The Sydney Opera House sails are to be lit in honour of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just weeks after the Minns government controversially blocked their illumination for the coronation of King Charles III.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday afternoon confirmed he had requested a projection of the Indian flag on the building in the evening to mark Modi’s two-day visit to Sydney.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.Credit: Janie Barrett
“We had a decision to make about [the Modi lighting],” he told 2GB host Chris O’Keefe. “It wasn’t our decision to make about the coronation. I was in the UK when that occurred so I wasn’t a party to any of those decisions.”
Albanese did not dispute an assertion from O’Keefe that the Opera House would have been lit for the coronation had it been his decision as prime minister.
“One of the things about lighting up the Opera House is it projects our image to the world,” Albanese said on Wednesday.
“There are 1.4 billion reasons why we want the Indian flag on the Opera House. It is the largest population in the world. Two-thirds of those 1.4 billion people are under 35. We want a relationship with them.”
The decision was revealed just days after NSW Premier Chris Minns warned the World Heritage-listed building should not be treated as a billboard. Minns had justified the decision to keep the Opera House sails dark for the coronation on cost grounds.
The Herald on Monday revealed the Sydney Opera House Trust had delivered its first review in a decade of guidelines seeking restrictions governing projections. Figures show that the sails were lit a record one in five nights last year, with three-quarters of the requests for illumination coming from the former Coalition state government.
NSW Arts Minister John Graham is now considering a revised policy that limits the kind of events that are eligible for illumination while supporting the sails being lit for significant artistic, community and cultural moments.
A spokesperson for Minns said the prime minister’s office had made a direct request to the Sydney Opera House and the cost would be borne by the federal government.
The cost of lighting is understood to range from $10,000 for single colours achieved by using gels on the Opera House floodlights, to upwards of $50,000, depending on the complexity and duration of the illumination, and if the image requires design and projection from the Overseas Passenger Terminal.
The Opera House sails have come to be lit regularly for reasons of national days of significance (Indian independence); international festivals (Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights, Lunar New Year); military invasions (twice for Ukraine); sporting achievements (the Beijing Winter Olympics) and in Australia’s soft diplomatic interests (the anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty).
The deaths of notable leaders and citizens have been increasingly marked by projections on the state’s most valuable cultural asset, from Queen Elizabeth II to Olivia Newton-John and former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, as well as police officers and paramedics killed while on duty.
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