Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01869:reg:6:p14
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01869
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 6 (pt 14/86)
Character Range: 47424–50249

cost £644,600, and another £250,000 was spent on fit-out: a substantial sum, but not much more than the £478,449 allocated in the 1926–27 budget for the costs of running Parliament for one year.

  Although Murdoch included offices for the Ministry, it was planned to locate the Prime Minister's principal office and the Cabinet Room, along with a small nucleus of staff from major departments, in a separate building known as the Secretariat (now West Block). This was a temporary measure pending construction of an administration building, which would house most of the public service when it moved from Melbourne.
  The Great Depression, which began in 1929, made these plans redundant, and the major move of public servants did not begin until the 1950s. Hence, over subsequent decades, ministers and their staff stayed in the building, becoming a major source of overcrowding as Parliament House also became the heart of executive government in Australia. It was probably the political tensions of the Depression years, however, which induced Prime Minister James Scullin to leave the Secretariat for his small suite at Parliament House; cramped it may have been, but it was close to the Labor Party Room and the Chambers. Every subsequent Prime Minister has worked in similar proximity.

  Other significant changes also followed the election of the Scullin Government in 1929. The defeated Country Party moved out of the Third Party Room on the Government side of the House of Representatives into the Opposition Party Room in the Senate, the room was divided and two senior ministers and their staff moved in. The erstwhile party room later became the office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

  Whether in government or not, the Country Party and its successors thereafter operated from the Senate Opposition lobby. As a result, in about 1938, when the Senate Club became the Senate Opposition Party Room, it was tacitly recognised that the ideal of senators meeting across party lines to represent the interests of their states was waning in the face of the party system.

  Although pressure on accommodation grew through the 1930s, with complaints that the party rooms were unsuitable working spaces for backbenchers, it was the growth of government during the Second World War which produced the first major additions. Two-storey wings were added to each side in 1943, principally to provide ministerial accommodation but also a few offices for private members and senators. This broke the connection between the internal garden courts and the rose gardens on either side of the House. Meanwhile, conversions of verandahs and loggias into offices continued. The building had reached 'saturation point', the Serjeant-at-Arms reported in 1940, and the wings only provided momentary respite. In 1948 a further floor was