Parliament House
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The seat of the Australian government and its bicameral parliament in the capital city Canberra. Much of the building is freely accessible to the public and the whole architecture is supposed to symbolize a greater importance of the people over its representatives. It is dark only in a couple of details on the side, but enough to warrant a short entry here.
More background info: This is the “New” Parliament House, which in 1988 replaced the Old Parliament House that had been in use since 1927.
A new building for Australia’s bicameral parliament, plus government offices and committee rooms, had long been under discussion and it was finally given the green light in 1978. A design competition was held and the winner was a US-based architectural firm.
Construction of the ambitious project began in 1981. In the end it cost about five times the amount of money that had originally been budgeted for the project. The intended deadline for the opening was missed by a few months, but in May 1988 the new Parliament House was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.
A key feature of the design is that the main part of the building has a curved and landscaped superstructure so that people can walk up to the top and thus be “above” their representatives in the chambers below – this is to symbolize the principle that “the people” are supposed to matter more then their elected representatives. (A similar idea was incorporated into the 1990s redesign of the Reichstag, the German parliament in Berlin.)
Without going into the minutiae of the Australian government system, suffice it to say that there are two complementing chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Originally a system similar to that of Westminster in London was envisaged, with the House of Representatives the equivalent of the House of Commons (Lower House) and the Senate the equivalent of the House of Lords (Upper House). But the terminology is the same as that of the Capitol in Washington D.C. – and indeed the role of the Senate in Australia is more similar to its US equivalent than it is to the House of Lords.
The building also houses the offices of the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Room, ministries, committees and so forth, so it’s actually much more than just a parliament house. Parts of it, including the Great Hall, can even be hired for non-official events of a private nature (such as weddings). So it’s really more a House of the People.
The inner layout of the building has attracted some criticism; nominally for security reasons the parts for the government and opposition are highly separate. Some politicians have lamented that this way no members of the one camp bump into members from the other camp in the corridors or in other informal settings, as had used to be the case in the Old Parliament Building, and now only ever meet in the more confrontational parliamentary debate settings.
What there is to see: From the sweeping forecourt you get a good look at the front facade and the coat of arms of Australia above it, made of stainless steel in this case, involving a kangaroo and an emu. In the background, towering above the entire structure is an enormous flagpole supported by four steel legs, flying an Australian flag the size of half a tennis court.
To get inside the building you have to pass through a security scan (as you would expect at such a location) and then you are free to roam the publicly accessible parts.
This includes the balcony of the Great Hall – while the hall itself is not normally publicly accessible. To get there you have to use one of the grand marble staircases that lead up from the column-studded foyer.
When I visited, parliament was not sitting, so visitors were allowed to go into the two chambers, the greenish House of Representatives and the reddish/maroon Senate.
In the rooms and corridors around these main parts are works of art, portraits and other objects as well as some information panels.
None of all that is really dark, but I spotted two dark elements that were unexpected to me. One is the display of the official “Apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples” issued in February 2008 under the government of then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The apology is both general and specific – the latter in particular in reference to the “stolen generations” when children of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders were forcibly removed from their homes and families to be “Europeanized” by British-descendant white settlers.
The other dark element was the display of items retrieved from London’s Westminster Palace, Buckingham Palace and Westminster Cathedral after they had been damaged by bombs during the “Blitz”, as the WWII air-raid campaign by the German Luftwaffe in 1940/41 is known in Britain. The items were gifted to the Australian government in 1942. The accompanying info panel unfortunately gets the terminology a bit confused, claiming that the word “Blitzkrieg” (literally ‘lightning war’) was a reference to those air raids too, when in reality it was the word used to describe the rapid advance of the German Wehrmacht first through Poland in 1939 and then through France in 1940.
These little dark elements are no more than small add-ons, and whether they alone justify a visit to Parliament House everybody will have to decide for themselves. I did find it worth my while – but then again, had I skipped this I might have had time for a visit to the National Museum of Australia that same day instead … oh well.
Location: atop Canberra's Capital Hill (aka Capitol Hill or Parliament Hill) at the end of Commonwealth Avenue and King’s Avenue, which form the National Triangle connecting to the more lived-in parts of the city on the other side of Lake Burley Griffin.
Google Maps locator: [-35.3073, 149.1251]
Access and costs: a bit far from everything else, barely walkable; free.
Details: Unless you are staying in the nearby Barton district, you will need to take public transport to get to Parliament House. The walk from the Civic and Braddon districts (best place to stay in – see Canberra >accommodation) would take an hour and would be along wide and busy avenues not ideal for pedestrians. There are buses (lines 57/58) and taxis are of course also an option. I used the Explorer Loop minibus service that also took me to the Australian War Memorial beforehand and picked me up at the Old Parliament House for the return journey (see under Canberra >getting around). If you’re driving your own vehicle there’s underground parking directly at Parliament House, but note that parking is free for only one hour. There are also bike racks at the car park.
Opening times: daily (except Christmas Day) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on non-sitting days and from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on days when parliament is sitting.
Admission is free.
Time required: I spent a bit under an hour in this large building, but I’m sure you could spend longer there, especially if you go on one of the guided tours on offer.
Combinations with other dark destinations: The neighbouring Old Parliament House features exhibitions that involve more dark elements than its newer successor, though it too is hardly a top dark attraction, but worth a visit.
See also under Canberra in general.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: Parliament House is primarily a non-dark attraction itself, of course. And the same could be said for the surrounding key attractions – see under Canberra!
