Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01869:reg:4:p33
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01869
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 4 (pt 33/63)
Character Range: 438029–440787

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 increasing the scale of the building and particularly its height lest the additions began to intrude on the vistas from the top of Camp Hill to Mount Ainslie and vice versa when the permanent building was eventually erected. As it was, the committee made some major changes to Murdoch's original plans for the provisional building. In the plans he drew up in 1922, Murdoch had shown suites of offices immediately south of the two Chambers, offices flanking each side of the Library and separate east and west wings enclosing the garden courtyards.

  As a result of its deliberations, the committee replaced some of the offices south of the Chambers with a large verandah on each side, did away with the offices on each side of the Library and dispensed with the east and west wings; a proposal to erect such wings, however, would re-emerge a mere 10 years after the opening of the building and would be eventually be built after 15 years. In making these changes, the committee was apparently concerned to admit as much fresh air as possible into the legislative Chambers and also to allow members easy and healthful access to the open air of the now larger and unenclosed courtyards; the stale and unhealthy conditions that parliamentarians had endured in Parliament House in Melbourne was no doubt part of the motivation behind these changes. The office space lost from the main floor as a consequence of the committee's changes was regained by expanding the accommodation available on the lower floor. The committee also effected some alterations to the front aspect of the building, making it flatter in appearance partly by removing to other locations the large Senate club and committee and reception rooms that Murdoch had originally placed on either side of the entrance vestibule.

  There was one final assumption in the design of Provisional Parliament House which was to have very significant, albeit unforeseeable, consequences for the building. Other than temporary short-term arrangements like the back-up Cabinet Room, Murdoch's design for the structure quite properly did not make any provision for the carrying out of the executive functions of government in the building; it was intended to serve essentially as a building for the legislature. Pending the relocation of Commonwealth Government departments from Melbourne, the executive work of government that had to be performed in Canberra was to be carried out by a skeleton staff, or 'secretariat', from each department. These staff were to be