Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868:reg:4:p51
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 4 (pt 51/63)
Character Range: 483734–486560

them. Fears of water penetrating the building by another means had also led to the periodic painting of the exterior walls to prevent moisture seeping through the external cement rendering. By financial year 1950–51, this had become such a burden that the Joint House Department had to hire two extra full-time painters to cope with the work. Meanwhile, during the same 12-month period, a new air conditioning system was provided for both Chambers and for parts of the Library, and the kitchen on the lower floor of the dining–recreation block was overhauled and modernised.60

  By the first half of the 1950s, the costs of maintaining the building had risen to quite substantial proportions. Partly because of austerity measures necessitated by the war, these costs had been kept down in the years 1941–46 to around £3,000 per annum. But, in the first financial year after the war, 1946–47, the maintenance costs jumped to £12,617, more than trebling the figure of the previous year. While this amount to some extent represented a catch-up for the low-spending on the building during the war, the annual maintenance cost remained at around this level for the next three years. Then, in 1950–51, the cost shot up again to a staggering £37,420 – a twelvefold increase in five years. For all but one of the ensuing five years, the figure stayed at over £30,000.61 Expenditure of this magnitude on simply maintaining what was after all a provisional structure was a problem that demanded action.

  The costs of maintaining and continually altering and adding to the building erupted into a major issue in early 1954. Archie Cameron, who had been elected Speaker of the House of Representatives when the Menzies government took office in February 1950, was responsible for the alterations, additions and repairs to the Representatives side of the building. In February 1954, four years after he had become Speaker and after much expenditure on the Provisional Parliament House, Cameron was faced with a budget estimate of over £16,000 to make yet further changes and repairs to the building. For him, this was the final straw.

    Parliament House Canberra: The Conservation Plan', p. 14-8; Joint Standing Committee on the New Parliament House, 'Report on the Future Use of the Provisional Parliament House', May 1984, section 2.15.
    59      Memorandum, LF Loder, Director-General, Department of Works and Housing, to RM Taylor, Director of Works, Canberra, 'Extensions to Parliament House', 4 May 1951; and, on same file, Department of Works Completion Report: 'Alterations to Parliament House', CRS A976/64, item 52/0239 part 4; Emerton, 'The Case for a Permanent Building', p. 9; Tanner and Associates, 'Provisional Parliament House Canberra: The Conservation Plan', pp. 14-5, 14-8.
    60      CR Fitzsimmons, ms notes