Parliament House

You'd think a political junkie like me would have made it to Parliament House before now. It's only been there for about 30 years, after all. Anyway, I finally made it the other day, and can report that it's quite an impressive building.

I remember clearly when it was being built in the 1980s. There was huge controversy about the billion dollar price tag. At about the same time, they were also building those six dreaded submarines that hardly ever work, and each one of those was going to cost almost as much as Parliament House. (By the way, we've been told recently we have to have a whole new set of submarines, and this time there's to be 12 of them and they're to cost $30 billion, no $50 billion, maybe $100 billion. Who cares, it's only money. And by the way, what are they for, actually? No one's bothered to tell us.)

Back to Parliament House. You get to check out the Senate and the House of Representatives, you pose with your favourite Prime Minister (or Governor General). You inspect Australia's very own copy of England's Magna Carta (read the explanation of its significance - it's nicely written and rather inspiring). And you can stroll on the lawn on the roof.

It was a non-sitting day when we were there. I've a feeling I'll be along again soon, on a sitting day maybe.

Doubt whether I'll find out what the submarines are for though.

* (Actually, Paul Keating was probably the best Prime Minister of them all. Gough certainly had his merits though.)