PARLIAMENT HOUSE: North Terrace, in the City of Adelaide
Its marble grandeur and significance seems to just slip into the city scape for most of us, but it is the home of a precious freedom…. the right of every adult to vote in members of parliament. Our Postcards tour of Parliament House, a major North Terrace landmark, coincides with its hosting of the fiftieth elected Parliament of South Australia.
Borrowing a French word meaning “to speak, discuss”, we use “parliament” to describe the gathering of elected representatives, but the state started out with a chosen few to advise an all powerful Governor. They met close by in Government House. As their numbers grew, a Legislative Council was duly built in the 1840’s on North Terrace, and come the prospect of the homeland bestowing democratic elections upon the colony in the 1850’s, the first Parliament House was hurriedly erected around it.
Thus, the stone and brick two-storey building with ground floor arches and a Dutch provincial facade that still stands between the railway station and the current parliament building was the home of the first MPs representing a province of about 100,000 people. The first Election Day was March 9, 1857, and the first Premier was a real pioneer, Col. Light’s assistant from day one here, Boyle Travers Finnis. Not for long though - they turned them over in those days… four Premiers in two months later that year! It makes the fiftieth Parliament sound rock-steady as it sits next door in a monument to stability.
The elected members who turned up for the first House of Assembly session in their newly completed chamber in 1889 must have been mightily impressed… ornate gas chandeliers (now electrified) and classical decoration above them and furniture in walnut and teak that’s now priceless, overseen by an elaborately carved speaker’s chair.
In the Westminster tradition inherited from the House of Commons under London’s Big Ben, the Premier and government MPs sit on the green leather benches to the right of the Speaker, with independent members on the cross benches at the back and the Opposition parliamentarians on the left. Underpinning the histrionics of Question Time and all the points of order and tactics is monumental tradition and symbolism. The ceremonial Mace that sits on a table in front of the Speaker when he is in the chair looks a little like a war-club, and it is based on instruments of conflict. It is now a symbol of authority that is dripping with imagery. On the ornate “head”, “VR” stands for whence we came - Queen Victoria’s region - while “ER” tells us where we are now, in the time of Queen Elizabeth II.
The crown is encrusted with South Australian opal. This mace is wielded by the Sergeant-at-Arms, who may be required to slip any miscreants in the building’s own clink, to be released at the Speaker’s pleasure.
In the emblematic green carpet of the House of Assembly (or Lower House), there is inlaid an all important red border in front of the benches, and ours is marked with the state’s floral emblem, Sturt’s desert pea. In more belligerent times past in the British Parliament an insult might lead to a drawn sword, but as long as the honorable member kept his feet behind the “blood-line”, he couldn’t reach the offender opposite.
In South Australia’s Parliament House, it is not just the obviously different colour of the carpet and benches that distinguish the two chambers. The House of Assembly is the traditional green, while the Legislative Council is the usual red in livery. The Upper House is a full fifty years younger (we’ll pursue that later), which explains the totally different décor, including Queensland maple paneling and bench posts carved in art deco styling.
The constitution of the houses is about to be reviewed, but currently there are twenty two MP’s here and forty seven in the House of Assembly. The Legislative Councillors will point out the richly carved President’s chair in English Oak. The Royal Arms topping it indicates that it is also the Royal or Vice-Regal throne - and so it is upon this chair that her Majesty sits (or the Governor) for the Opening of Parliament, which is always performed here with all the MPs croweded in.
The Black Rod links this chamber with the Sovereign too. It was and still is carried before the British Monarch on formal occasions, and here it is in the hands of an office of the House called Black Rod, who maintains order and decorum on this side of Parliament House.
In both chambers, you are welcome to come and see your parliamentarians in session, and don’t be put off by the sign on the door to the public area - the Strangers Gallery. But why were these Houses built a half-century apart? For the fledging democracy of South Australia in the 1850’s a bigger and grander Parliament House was soon on the agenda, but from go to whoa it was an incredible sixty three years before the full imperiously columned and classical marble façade faced North Terrace.
“Plan A” was mounted in 1873 with a design competition, and fresh from his successes with the Adelaide Town Hall and the GPO it was won by the Christopher Wren of Adelaide, Edmund Wright (with his Melbourne colleague Lloyd Taylor). Magnificent with a heaven seeking dome emulating London’s St Paul’s, the design suffered years of delays and a takeover by a government architect… it was a Sydney Opera House of the nineteenth century, only it suffered even more.
The foundations were started here and then stopped while governments dilly-dallied over other sites - Victoria Square or the Government House grounds, perhaps? There were squabbles over how the marble façade was being attached to the brick once it was underway, and all the workers were put off. At last in 1889 the downhill half, the House of Assembly, was completed - for three times the original cost estimate. And it looked half finished, with a garden paddock where the rest should have been towards King William Street.
World War I saved us from a cheap imitation proposal to finish it, and so finally growing pride in South Australia’s coming centenary in 1936 saw Parliament House construction underway. You can see the join just to the left of the main central entrance, where the younger marble is uniformly darker from bottom to top. It is from the same Angaston quarry, and to get more matching granite for the semi-basement level, they had to re-open the special quarry on small, isolated and uninhabited West Island off the Bluff at Encounter Bay.
We would not have gained the majestic corner half, mind you, without the massive philanthropy of Advertiser owner, Sir Langdon Bonython, who added to his contribution of the Bonython Hall to the University of Adelaide by offering £100,000 (worth easily $10 million today) for its completion. And so exactly fifty years after the first half opened, the Legislative Council side was opened in the winter of 1939.
You are welcome to take one of their regular guided tours of our seat of democracy as it celebrates this year the fiftieth Parliament of South Australia.
Details
Parliament House
North Terrace
ADELAIDE SA 5000Inquiries: 8237 9100
Fax: 8237 9482Public Tours
Mondays and Fridays: 10.00am and 2.00pm (Not when Parliament is sitting) OR Contact your local state MPSchool Tours
Contact your local MP’s Electorate Office
Enquiries:
Penny Cavanagh, Education Officer
Ph: 8237 9386
Email: penny.cavanagh@parliament.sa.gov.au
Website: www.parliament.sa.gov.au (A comprehensive site with a virtual tour, contact details of all MP’s, sitting days, education materials, legislation etc)
