Old Parliament House

Earlier this week I had an expenses paid meeting in Canberra with the Regional Australia Institute, of which I am a Fellow. The meeting was to target the Institute's research agenda for 2014 and its board, fellows and research team were all brought together at the Margaret Whitlam Pavilion in Canberra's Arboretum.. Interestingly, I have just completed a briefing paper on regional policy for the Institute and I was surprised to see that the agenda followed closely my identification of key research issues and policy directions.

I know the chair of the Institute's board quite well because he also heads the Northern Inland Regional Development Board, which covers Armidale, the Northern Tablelands and adjoining regions. And we were on the same flights to Sydney and then on Canberra. He's also a prominent local farmer ... well, local is nearly 200 km (or 125 miles) away! He liked my ideas greatly and our opinions on regional development policy directions were almost identical.

I had a free day after that meeting before staying the night with Bec, Rob and Max in the Canberra suburbs and since my hotel was located right in centre of the city I decided to tackle some its many museums starting with Old Parliament House. This was the parliament building for maybe 61 years until it was superseded by the new building in 1988, the year of Australia's bicentenary. After that it was turned into a museum of Australian Democracy. Despite having been in the new building many times, I cannot recall being in the old one until a couple of days ago and so the visit was of considerable interest to me. Something of what I saw is illustrated here:

Old Parliament House - the mast in the background is atop the new parliament building.

Cheating a little! This is the nearby Treasury Building, but Bec's office is a new extension to it.

This is the old House of Representatives chamber, with the ceremonial mace in the foreground.

The speaker's chair. and nearby despatch boxes.

The Senate Chamber. Notice how we borrowed American terms for our debating chambers.

A picture of the formal opening of parliament by the Queen early in her reign. It hangs in Kings Hall.

The government party room and Prime Minister's Office. The last incumbent was Bob Hawke.

Various members' offices

Speaker's suite.

Another Mace.

Curtin's office. He was war-time Prime Minister, Churchill's colleague down-under.

Opposition party room.

Part of the President of the Senate's Suite - used by HM during her stay at Parliament House.

That presumably makes this the Royal Flush!

The President of the Senate had a nice office.

The Country Party room (the Country Party is now the National Party).

Kings Hall.

Senate courtyard, where the Senators could breathe some fresh air.

I hope you enjoyed this tour as much as I did. By the way, here's a self-picture of me sitting in a speaker's chair taken with my mobile phone.

AS