Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868:reg:4:p43
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 4 (pt 43/63)
Character Range: 463075–465902

evoked a response from the government. As the trend towards accommodating the executive in Parliament House was now so far advanced as to be all but irreversible, there was little chance that the government would act on Collings's demand that the executive should be expelled from the building. In any case, there was nowhere else for the executive to go. The government therefore began to consider how office accommodation in the building could be expanded. In December 1937, the Chief Architect in the Department of the Interior, Edwin Henderson, put forward a scheme to erect a two-storey wing on the outer side of the garden courtyard on the House of Representatives side. The scheme was in fact a part-revival of Murdoch's 1922 sketch plan in which he had shown a wing in this position, with a corresponding one on the Senate side. Though the Joint House Committee quickly endorsed the principle of providing extra accommodation for Parliament House, Henderson's scheme became mired in a long series of meetings, protests, proposals and counter-proposals. In the end, the scheme lapsed, though it would not be too long before it would re-surface.45

  In the meantime, the government decided on some expedient additions and alterations to create more office space in the building. This was achieved mainly by subdividing some of the larger rooms, enclosing the verandahs on the northern side of each garden court, and converting two visitors' rooms, four small corridors and even a toilet into offices. About this time, a more important alteration was effected when a double-storey extension was added to the rear of the Library. The extension represented the first major departure from Murdoch's design as it obliterated the small garden courtyard immediately south of the Library, completely filled in one side of each covered way that ran alongside the Library to the dining–recreation block, and cut off the former open communication between the two larger garden courtyards on each side of the Library.
  The provision of additional space for the Library, however, allowed the area that had been converted for Library use on the Senate side of the building in 1935 to be modified and claimed as offices for three ministers and their secretaries. These additions were urgently required as three new government

    43      Senator Collings in CPD [Senate], 18 and 30 June 1937; Senator Marwick, in CPD [Senate], 30 June 1937; Gregory, MHR, in CPD [HReps], 23 September 1938; all in Commonwealth Record Series [CRS] A461,
    item B4-1-10.
    44      Collings in Hansard [Senate], 30 June 1937, in CRS A461, item B4-1-10.
    45      Note on file, 'Proposed Additions to Parliament House, Canberra', 17 December 1937; memorandum, RA Broinowski to Chief Architect, 22 December 1937; and associated correspondence, CRS