Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868:reg:4:p46
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 4 (pt 46/63)
Character Range: 470850–473745

Agendum, 'Parliament Press Gallery. Request for Additional Accommodation', 4 April 1938, CRS A6006, item 1938/04/08.
    49      Hasluck, The Government and the People 1939–1941, pp. 435–36, 581
  While the exigencies of war could not have been foreseen, the accommodation problem was compounded by the creeping trend over the years to house the executive in Parliament House, in lieu of providing separate departmental accommodation elsewhere in Canberra. By August 1939, the Commonwealth Government was leasing 30,000 square feet (2,787 square metres) of office space in privately-owned buildings in the national capital, and the Commonwealth's Chief Property Officer reported that another 1,000 square feet (93 square metres) was required immediately. By early 1940, departments in Canberra were pressing for another 15,850 square feet (1,468 square metres).50 There was no hope at all of finding the required extra space anywhere in Canberra or its environs and, in these circumstances, all available space in Parliament House was taken up. Thus, in March 1940, the Serjeant-at-Arms felt compelled to report to the Clerk of the House of Representatives that the accommodation situation in the House was now 'most acute' and that 'saturation point [had] been reached.' At that point, the building was providing office space for more than 50 departmental staff of ministers who were members of the House of Representatives; accommodating the staff of ministers who were senators was another matter again. The Serjeant-at-Arms informed the Clerk that 'it [was] impossible, without the provision of additional offices, to house any further departmental officers in the Parliamentary building.'51

  To deal with the critical accommodation problem, the government resolved to make some substantial additions to the building. These entailed the resurrection of Henderson's 1937 scheme, itself based on Murdoch's 1922 sketch plan, to build wings on the outer side of each garden courtyard, the construction to involve the demolition of the two covered ways that stood in these positions. Initially, the government was inclined to erect one wing only, on the Representatives side, but the critical shortage of space quickly led to a decision to build a matching wing on the Senate side. On 14 January 1943, the builder, C Banks of Griffith, ACT, signed a contract to construct a double-storey wing on the House of Representatives side of the building, the work to be completed in 20 weeks. Eight months later, on 14 September 1943, another building firm, Messrs Simmie and Company of the suburb of Kingston, signed a contract to build a corresponding
  two-storey wing on the Senate side, the contract to be completed in 24 weeks. Thus erected only a decade and a half after the opening of the provisional building, the wings provided an additional 48 offices, two attendants' boxes and two toilets.