Powerhouse Parramatta Opens Its Doors in Western Sydney With 3,000 Objects, While an Investigation Hangs Over It

On a riverbank in western Sydney where there used to be a car park, the doors of a museum opened to the public on Saturday morning after almost 15 years of planning, argument and building. Powerhouse Parramatta, which the ABC reports cost $915 million and took four years and more than 4,000 workers to build, was opened by New South Wales Premier Chris Minns together with schoolchildren.

It is the largest museum in the state, and the ABC calls it the biggest cultural build in Australia since the Sydney Opera House opened in 1973. It arrives with a governance investigation still unresolved, which has shadowed the lead-up.

What can you see at Powerhouse Parramatta?

More than 3,000 objects are on show across five opening exhibitions in about 18,000 square metres of exhibition and public space, the ABC says. The Mall looks at how shopping centres have shaped daily life in Western Sydney. Overflow, led by First Nations filmmakers and organisations, explores saltwater and freshwater systems and includes work by Kamilaroi filmmaker Ivan Sen. The Turning is a five-part immersive show by the British artist Es Devlin, her first in Australia. The Dark is a children's exhibition of more than 800 objects, many lent by children from across the region. Task Eternal, in the largest gallery at 2,200 square metres, hangs aircraft from the ceiling and displays the spacesuit of Katherine Bennell-Pegg, Australia's first female astronaut.

Entry to the museum and four of the five exhibitions is free, according to the ABC. Task Eternal is ticketed at $30 for adults and $20 for concession holders, and children under 16 go in free. SBS reports that an opening festival of 179 events runs until 29 November, most of them free, and that 25,000 people had registered for events across the opening weekend.

Why has the opening been so contested?

The project began under the former Coalition premier Mike Baird, and the politics have never been far away. SBS reports that Minns credited Baird with starting it, and that the Coalition says the museum would not exist had Labor won in 2015 or 2019, and claims credit for delivering it.