Today we headed into our nation’s capital to pay our respects to the seat of democracy in this great country of ours, Parliament House. In the climate of free speech that exists in this great nation, the Assyrian Christian community had a huge gathering on the lawn outside Parliament House to protest over the treatment and murder of their compatriots in Iraq by the Islamic Statehood fundamentalists. I’m not sure what they hoped the Australian government could do about it but it did mean we had to park quite a distance from Parliament House and walk.

Our first stop was the Old Parliament House building. As we entered we were able to tag along with a tour group.

House of Representatives, Old Parliament House

What was a bit of a surprise was the size of the Prime Minister’s offices. The actual Prime Minister’s office was a reasonable size but all the offices off the corridor were like cubby holes and apparently there were up to 30 support staff working there. Bob Hawke was the last Prime Minister to occupy the office. The guide pointed out the lack of thought that went into security when this building was designed.

Prime Minister’s Office, as Bob Hawke left it.

The Prime Minister’s office has large glass windows visible from the street giving anyone to opportunity to take a potshot.

Jacky in the Big Seat, with all her classroom experience she would make a good Speaker

From here we walked up the hill to the new Parliament House. Security has improved and they take it seriously, just to get in, all items out of your pockets and a full x-ray and metal detector. They wouldn’t let me take my pocket knife in. We explored what we could, went up to the roof and took a few photos.

Parliament House

Parliament was in session but the House of Reps wasn’t open to the Public until 2pm for question time so we decided to go and sit in the Senate for a while. All phones, cameras, bags, etc have to be checked in to the cloak room. It was good to see how well our taxes are being spent on our Senators’ salaries. There was one senator from the Greens giving a speech on Op Shop week to a total of 4 other senators who all looked like they were working on something else completely different.

After that exhilarating experience we worked out that we had time to go to the café for lunch and still be back in time for question time, the real highlight. After lunch we again checked all our gear in and went to see the real action. It was good to see nearly a full attendance. It was classic school classroom antics with the speaker warning some of the interjectors and when that was ignored standing to her feet and waiting until she everyone attention before allowing the debate to continue. Of the 10-12 questions that were asked about 3 were seeking real information, the rest were each party setting up their own ministers to praise their own policy or berate the other party. Once question time ended the Prime Minister and over half of the members left the chamber leaving a few of the smaller fish to debate the legislation that was in the process of going through Parliament. Once again giving you a real, warm fussy feeling of our well our taxes are being spent.

After all this excitement it was time to go back to camp to unwind.