ActivateLearning

Visit to Victorian State Parliament

April 2023

Today we spent the day with our nephew who was visiting from interstate. It was another glorious sunny day so we walked around the city and decided to check out the free public tour guide of Victorian State Parliament. The tour guide was EXCELLENT. He wasn’t dry and boring instead, an animated storyteller that had us enthralled.

At the entry of Victorian State Parliament, a lovely young man from Leeds gave me the rundown of this coat of arms and the story of the garter. I asked him, “are you the tour guide?” No! He said, “I’m visiting from Leeds!” Later, it turns out that the design of our Victorian State Parliament came from……the Leeds Town Hall. We all turned to look at the tourist, he was just as surprised as us! Coincidence, much?

Queens Hall which is the entry into the Houses of Parliament

Legislative Assembly (the mace is fake. The real one couldn’t be found as it’s likely it ended up in a brothel nearby back in the 1850s….still missing)

The Legislative Council (upper house)

Ministers don’t use these references anymore when everything is online. However they do paper clip their notes to them.

The members library at Parliament. This is how I want my own personal library to look like

The centre table in the library