Paul Kelly, Kev Carmody, Frank Hardy, Vincent Lingiari
Former Legislative Council Chamber
Stained glass window: Queen Victoria
Inner courtyard of Queensland Parliament House
I spent yesterday at a symposium to celebrate Queensland's 150th birthday: The Queensland Constitution, its origin and evolution.
Lots of speakers, but the two most impressive to my mind were Justice James Allsop, and Pat King, J. (I need to have the documentation to hand to say precisely who they are..) All the speakers read from their papers (to be published) and did an impressive job of skipping pages to fit to the timeline.
Allsop was extremely interesting in his history of the NSW parliament and the various strands of intense feeling, and the forming different alliances, in the efforts of the colonists to rid themselves of the executive dictatorshop of the penal settlement. So I am sort of looking forward to the book.
The conference was held in the old legislative council chamber (the LC was abolished in 1922, after many years of effort), which we reached by crossing from the parliamentary annexe. Hence the paintings, improperly photographed & shown here. Somewhat surprising were the wooden verandahs round this inner courtyard. Odd for such a majestic building (at least from George & Alice Streets.) (I think we were shown the dirty linen. But probably everyone is so used to it, they don't notice it.)
I had paid to go to the dinner, but there was a gap of two hours between pre-dinner drinks and the dinner, and the end of the conference, and my courage failed me. A pity, I had planned to see the strangers dining room.
