Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01869:reg:4:p32
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01869
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 4 (pt 32/63)
Character Range: 435448–438269

correspondence and any other business they needed to transact outside the Chambers. Pearce was critical of this arrangement and compared it unfavourably with the situation he had seen at first hand in Washington, where senators and all members of Congress had their own private offices. Murdoch was well aware of this deficiency in his plan and suggested that East and West Blocks could be taken over as private offices for parliamentarians once the two buildings had served their purpose as accommodation for the Secretariat.28 Nothing ever came of this idea, and the desire of private members and senators to have their own private offices was to exist as a

    25      PSCPW, 'Report … relating to the proposed Erection of Provisional Parliament House, Canberra', pp. xv–xvi, 2, 8; Emerton, 'Report by the Secretary of the Joint House Department', 7 September 1956, p. 8.
    26      Emerton, 'Report by the Secretary of the Joint House Department', 7 September 1956, p. 7–8; Michael Pearson and Brendan O'Keefe, 'Parliamentary Library Old Parliament House: Heritage Analysis', report for Bligh Voller Nield, April 1998, vol. 1, pp. 3–4; Murdoch in evidence to PSCPW, 'Report … relating to the proposed Erection of Provisional Parliament House, Canberra', p. 27.
    27      Emerton, 'Report by the Secretary of the Joint House Department', 7 September 1956, p. 7–8; Pearce in evidence to PSCPW, 'Report … relating to the proposed Erection of Provisional Parliament House, Canberra', pp. 1, 2; Harry Grover, A Descriptive Guide to Canberra, Melbourne, Brown, Prior and Co., 1927, p. 35.
    28      Minute, CS Daley to Secretary, Civic Branch, Department of the Interior, 'Lay-out of Canberra – Design by AJ Macdonald', 25 March 1936, CRS A1/15, item 36/4832.
  constant background pressure for increasing accommodation in the building for most of its life as the home of the nation's Parliament.

  Murdoch also expressed a more general warning at the outset that:

     this plan provides, in accordance with the wishes of the Government, the minimum of accommodation by which Parliament can conveniently commence work. It is quite true that the plan as shown provides no more accommodation than will be found necessary at the very beginning. It is obvious, however, that more accommodation must be provided in the future if this temporary house is to remain in use for any time.29

  In fact, in its report, the Standing Committee on Public Works recommended that the building could, if required, be enlarged by providing a partial lower floor beneath the suites of rooms flanking the Library on the ground floor, by erecting one-storey wings on each side of the dining–recreation block and by building a partial upper storey at the front of the building on each side.30 There was some uneasiness, however, about