Yesterday Andrew and I decided to have a look at Parliament House. We know someone who works here so it was a chance to get a tour behind the scenes, away from public areas and see what the staff see and do.

It’s such a fascinating place to go and do a tour to learn more about how our country is governed….as well as admire the excellent artwork and an exhibition on the Magna Carta. (Australia has one of the 1297 inspeximus copy of the Magna Carta. It is one of only four known original 1297 inspeximus copies in existence)

We wandered around the Great Hall and stepped outside to the Queen’s Terrace court yard cafe to take a photo of the road towards the War Memorial.

Afterwards we headed down to the Old Parliament House. Politicians had moved to the new house in 1988 for the bicentennial so now it’s the Museum for Australian Democracy (MoAD).

We spent the entire day there walking in and out of each of the rooms as there were many different exhibits. All exhibitions were about democracy and very well presented.

My favourite was how they set up government and party rooms as if the members were still using them. You could see cigarettes in ashtrays, cardigans drapes casually over chairs… it was a blast from the past to scrutinise all the things on the desk and recall how we used to work in the 1980s.

Here’s some photos of how the Prime Minister’s staff worked.

They also set up party rooms as they were in the 1940s too. Lots of wood everywhere….

My favourite was a letter writing exhibition about how to write letters to government and a room was set up with about six typewriters. I hadn’t used one of these since 1986 but it took me about five minutes before I was tapping away to my heart’s content. (I now want one of these machines for myself).

Another great exhibition was one with all the Prime Ministers of Australia with a little bit about them. If Julia was allowed to do what she set out to do, she would have been the best prime minister our country would have seen in recent times. Meanwhile I also took a photo of Tony Abbott’s budget smugglers. Scott Morrison only received derision from us and we moved on.

Overall a fantastic day which then ended up with having dinner with our extended family and catch up with their news. We only see them once a year (if that) so it waa nice to spend time with Andrew’s family because we miss them.