On Tuesday, Greens councillor Jonathan Sri moved a motion that said: “In light of the recent decision to project advertising onto the Sydney Opera House, Brisbane City Council confirms that it does not support commercial advertising on significant public buildings and monuments”.

On October 9, more than 1000 protestors gathered in front of the Sydney Opera House after the sails on the World Heritage-listed building were lit up with Racing NSW projections.

Cr Sri said the spread of advertising on the city’s streets and public squares was getting out of hand and we needed to draw a line.

“I’m not as concerned about non-profit or artistic uses, such as hanging a banner to raise awareness about an important public health issue, or the council’s Christmas story projections on the City Hall facade - which are a popular and creative use of the building,” he said.

“But I think the vast majority of residents would be firmly opposed to the idea of projecting business advertising onto City Hall or Customs House or the old GPO building.”

The Christmas story projections on the facade of City Hall are sponsored by Gold Lotto.

Cr Sri said residents had told him they were concerned about the proliferation of advertising in public spaces throughout the city.

“These days you can’t even sit and wait for a bus without being subjected to corporate-sanctioned visual pollution,” he said.

“Some people think this sort of advertising doesn’t affect them, but it’s deliberately designed to influence consumer behaviour at a subconscious level.”

Cr Sri said the motion had deliberately been drafted broadly to allow for further discussions about exactly which buildings were significant, and how strictly we should define the term ‘commercial advertising’.

Independent councillor Nicole Johnston said she supported the motion.

"I don't believe we should be doing commercial advertising," she said.

"There is already such a phenomenal amount I can't see why we wouldn't have a unanimous agreement on this motion before us today."

Opposition leader Peter Cumming said he considered there were plenty of opportunities for commercial advertising in Brisbane and the use of council premises would be crossing the line.

"We're happy to see council buildings lit up with colours of appropriate charities and happy to have Christmas lights on City Hall but commercial advertising like horse races would be over the top," he said.

Deputy mayor Adrian Schrinner said the whole premise of the motion was to bottle some of the rage experienced in Sydney and ship the rage up to Brisbane and try and create a manufactured issue here.

"There is no relevance to the Sydney Opera House situation to Brisbane ... and there is no plan to change anything that we currently do in relation to advertising or lighting up major city assets," he said.

The motion was not upheld with all of the LNP councillors in the chamber voting against it.

Cr Sri, Cr Johnston and the Labor councillors voted in favour of the motion.