Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01869:reg:4:p36
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01869
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 4 (pt 36/63)
Character Range: 445696–448434

in 1927', Legislative Research Service: Current Issues Paper No. 12, 1987–88, pp. 18–19.
    32      Memorandum, CS Daley to Secretary, Home and Territories Department, 7 August 1926, CRS A1/15, item 26/15054; ms minute, Robert P Christie, 'Renovation and Maintenance of External Woodwork of Parliament House', 7 March 1949, CRS A6728/12, item 191/6; WI Emerton(?), 'Parliament House – Canberra. A.C.T. Notes on the Operation and Allied Problems requested by the Scottish Architectural Student', 1976, p. 3, CRS A6728/1, item 156/1.
  grown in the areas around the House, which had been a building site for over three years, in order to keep the dust down. The varieties of grass seed planted were specially chosen on the advice of TC Weston, the Superintendent of Parks and Gardens in Canberra. With the official opening of the provisional building approaching, great haste was made to develop lawns at least in the front and at the sides of the House. On ground that had not yet been perfectly levelled, grass seed was sown hurriedly and under conditions where insufficient water was available to foster luxuriant growth. The result was acceptable for the opening, but development continued in fits and starts for a number of years. Thus, the areas at the rear of the House were only planted with grass in late 1927. Excavations for the ornamental pool in the grounds in front of the House were carried out in 1929, but then work lapsed. For several years afterwards, the excavated area, overgrown with weeds, presented an eyesore in front of Australia's Parliament. The work was only completed after complaints about the state of the unfinished pool in 1933.33

  The Provisional Parliament House was officially opened by the Duke of York, later to become King George VI, at a ceremony in Canberra on 9 May 1927. The ceremony did not actually mark the opening of a Session of Parliament; it was merely the continuation of the 10th Australian Parliament which had opened in Melbourne in January the previous year. Immediately following the opening ceremony, Parliament adjourned to re-convene on 28 September, more than four months later.

  While Parliament was in recess, a sad event in the shape of the first death to occur in the new building took place when the Clerk of the House, Walter Gale, collapsed and died in his office – now part of Room M86 – on 27 July. He was succeeded by John Robert McGregor who, at the resumption of Parliament in Canberra on 28 September, himself collapsed in the House of Representatives Chamber and died that night in the small Canberra Hospital.34

  Despite the comfortable appointments to the new building and its handsome, dazzling white appearance in the Canberra landscape, serious problems