Leaving Fyshwick I continued on to Old Parliament House.
Parking around on the east side, next to the parliament tennis courts.
There were busses parked along this side, and it seemed there were school children coming in and out of the building throughout the day.
For car parking, I had brought a bag of coins with me as there wasn’t a lot of info on if the parking metres accepted tap to pay parking, or even cards at all. Some things suggested they accepted payment via an app, but thought I’d use up my coins I had knocking around in the house. Upon approaching the machine I discovered yes it does take cards both insert and tap, as well as coins.
As I had brought coins, I put in $10 worth of coins, and that yielded me not a great deal of time, and I used most of that time wandering around Old Parliament House.
It’s free to go in, they just want your postcode, that mine started with a 3 seemed to make the guy entering the numbers stumbled. Which was odd, it’s be more unusual if I was from Western Australia or something, not the neighbouring state of Victoria,
Old Parliament House isn’t just a museum, I’m not sure if it’s even accurate to describe it as that. It’s wonderful that it still exists.
It’s an education tool, teaching kids about democracy and what our parliament and government is, along with all the history of the building.
I think that’s something that you don’t appreciate until you see it from the outside, overhearing kids being educated about it, and seeing the ways / paths that are taken to educate and engage with the subject matter.
It’s not just stuff you read on the walls and information provided like that. There’s panels to open and close, drawers to open and shut and touch screens to interact with.
It’s all very well thought out to engage people.
I wandered through some of the other parts of Old Parliament house, which it seemed weren’t covered by the school tour groups, and therefore were a lot quieter than the other areas of the building.
There’s a whole room dedicated to referenda and how they in general fail, it’s hard, deliberately so to get a referendum to pass, and this area explains how it works, what ones have been done in the recent past, and how that all unfolded.
There is an area just on the furnishings of Old Parliament House, I didn’t see anyone in this section, but I found it thoroughly interesting.
That they kept it all, and how so much of it was specially designed for Parliament House.
Also, the overhead lights are so fabulously Art Deco and beautifully produced, it looked like turned aluminium, they’re very nice pieces. I wonder if they were produced for anywhere else? They’re probably worth a bit now.
The museum curators or whoever it is who has ‘dressed’ the rooms have done an amazing job capturing an area in their dressing of the rooms that show off different areas of Old Parliament House.
Mostly set to the 1960s through to 1980s, it’s the little details that make it look amazing. In one room which is the copier room, complete with fax machine and small kitchenette, there’s a half finished cup of tea or coffee that’s been propped next to the copy machine, so it looks like you’re peering into the past of this room and seeing everything caught as it was. The shelves are still full of the various things a copy room might be filled with.
Then as you make you way through there’s receptions for the Prime Minister, which are also dressed as though they would have been, and it’s so perfect, it’s just as though you’re looking back in time, there’s white out, computers, a ‘thank you for not smoking’ sign, it’s all so wonderfully period correct.
In other rooms there’s a full ashtray of cigarette butts, a book of matches sitting beside it.
I just really appreciated the set dressing, the mood was just really and properly set.
At times wandering around Old Parliament House I did think I was going to get lost, even though I had a map with me.
There were some places that I just didn’t explore, in part because I didn’t want to wander, but in part I’m more interested in actual things in-situ rather than being presented lacking some of their context, so the Howard Library, which seemed a large indulgence for out past PM, I walked in and had a brief look and then left. It’s down a long corridor at the back side of the building which it feels like you have to go looking for it.
The Prime Minister’s office was pretty low key considering it was the PM’s office. What I loved however was the PM’s kitchenette, and in particular the jars for the tea, coffee and sugar, which are old instant coffee jars. I know this because I’ve got them at home, inherited from my late mother, and we used them growing up. It’s just kinda lovely that even in Parliament House, and in the PM’s kitchenette, they’re not using fancy coffee, tea and sugar canisters, instead they’re glass jars that have been recycled.
After getting a little flustered in the cabinet meeting room as people started to come in as I was trying to leave, and I become a bit of a stuttering mess needing to interact with people, I made my way down stairs down to the ‘Truth, Power and a Free Press’ exhibition, which includes the original ABC offices, buried down in the bowels of Old Parliament House. Including where the sound recorder would work in what was essentially a corridor, nicely carpet lined to sound proof it, but still a corridor.
Interesting thing was how warm it was in the building, and that's because the building's hydronic heating was still working and was on. It's fantastic that those old radiators in the rooms are still functional and still heating the building.
Eventually I made my way out, exiting through the gift shop, it has a lot of books on politics, but nothing really in the realms of souvenirs that are specific to the building itself, otherwise I might have bought something. Instead I left empty handed.