Walking down the corridor outside the Prime Minister's office in Old Parliament House, for example, I couldn't help thinking that if the PM wanted to carpet an errant minister, he would have to do it very quietly (assuming, of course, he didn't want the news to get out). There's a matter of only a couple of metres between the PM's suite and the passageway, and while we may be talking soundproofing and closed doors you wouldn't be able to keep too many secrets from casual passers-by.
Today, of course, in the new structure, the Prime Minister's suite, the ministerial offices, the Cabinet Room and similar locations are discreetly tucked away behind closed doors operated by security personnel, and not much is going to get out unless someone wants it to.
No stories based on inferences and observations in and around the actual corridors of power here, folks.
On the other hand, had the structure not been completed before the age of global terrorism kicked in, one can't help suspecting that the response to something like 9/11 would have been something like sealing off the whole site from public access, initially and supposedly temporarily because of national security concerns, with the temporary measures becoming permanent due to ongoing considerations.
A walk around Parliament House provokes those kinds of thoughts, particularly when immediately followed by a stroll around it's predecessor, which is what I did once we'd pointed Madam towards the National Gallery, working on the principle that both of us would have plenty to look at without the presence of impatient significant others.
The original intention had been to demolish the old building once Parliament House was finished, and while the new incarnation as the Museum of Australian Democracy has offered what may well be a permanent life line, I hope the place stays there, not least because it provides a window into the way things used to be, as well as an avenue for school groups and the like to act out scenarios that wouldn't be permissible in the actual Parliamentary chambers.
That stroll around the building must have taken a little longer than anticipated, even though I gave the Museum of Australian Democracy a fairly cursory once over, because I emerged from the building around the same time as the text message from Madam announcing that she'd finished at the Gallery arrived. More...