'Leaks in the urinals': New exhibition explores media's role in political history

Malcolm Fraser leaves Parliament House after parliament was dissolved on November 11, 1975. (National Archives of Australia) The Press Gallery exhibition at Old Parliament House's Museum of Australian Democracy showcases the historical work of reporters, camera operators, editors and news support staff. Recreated offices and workspaces on display are complete with typewriters, teleprinters, microphones, phones, files and notebooks from the time. Museum chair Barrie Cassidy says it "fills a void in the history" of Old Parliament House and gives visitors a sense of how the media worked there. Link copiedShareShare articleThe media usually ranks alongside politicians at the very bottom of surveys on Australia's most trusted occupations and professions. Nothing new there, in an era when its product is often derided as 'fake news'. So when some of the nation's current crop of politicians combined with reporters to recognise the parliamentary press gallery's work since Federation, there was never going to be a clamour to get in. But even so, on the eve of a cyclically important budget for his government, the prime minister led celebrations at the opening of a new exhibition at Old Parliament House that showcases the work of reporters, camera operators, editors and news support staff. The Press Gallery exhibition at the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD) takes visitors inside the original working spaces at Old Parliament House, where reporters worked between 1927 and 1988. A recreated press gallery office in the new exhibition at the Museum of Australian Democracy. (Museum of Australian Democracy) For veteran ABC journalist and now-chair of MoAD, Barrie Cassidy, the physical restoration of a slither of the old press gallery workspaces fills a void in the history of Old Parliament House. "Right up until now this building has captured the role of the politicians, the role of the staff. What was missing was the gallery," he said. Barrie Cassidy says the exhibition provides visitors with a sense of how the media worked in the building. (ABC News: Matt Roberts) By his own admission, what's been recreated at MoAD isn't an exact replica of the crammed and chaotic workplace he left behind in the 1980s. "What happened when the building closed was more than half of it — the gallery — was demolished, so we couldn't recreate it as such," Mr Cassidy said. But standing in the ABC bureau he unfathomably shared with 17 colleagues, Mr Cassidy remembers clearly the intimate space "not much bigger than a motel room". "Almost everybody smoked and if you had 17 desks there'd be 17 ash trays. I smoked at the time, and that's probably the reason I gave it up," he laughed. In the exhibition's faithful recreation, ash trays — these days hygienically empty — remain fairly prominent fixtures on many desks. The faithful recreations are complete with ashtrays and vintage telephones. (ABC News: Luke Stephenson) The Press Gallery exhibition seeks to capture the evolution of the media that covered political news across the decades, from its arrival in the building when it opened in 1927, through to its move further up Capital Hill in 1988. When parliament first relocated from Melbourne into its 'temporary' home in Canberra, the gallery was home to roughly 30 media staff — all of them men, and mostly from traditional printed newspaper mastheads. By the end, after radio and broadcast television newcomers arrived, numbers had expanded to more than 250 men and women, bringing with them new technology to write, record and transmit their work across the country. A teleprinter operator known as Joan, or "Zazz", in one of the Press Gallery offices in 1973. (National Archives of Australia) Staff at the museum worked for two years to find the typewriters, teleprinters, microphones, phones, files and notebooks used across this period. The museum's curator, Amy Lay, led the team whose task it was to find these pieces of history to form the exhibition's displays. "We have tried really hard to find a lot of the technology," she said. Amy Lay and her team spent two years sourcing equipment, files and notebooks for the exhibition. (ABC News: Matt Roberts) Indeed, through the generosity and recollections of former news staff or their families, Ms Lay has painstakingly assembled photos, clippings, press identification tags and stories spanning the decades. "There are tools of the trade like the typewriters, like the tape recorders, but there are also things that are the sum-up of relationships — we have contact books on display that are the embodiment of how a journalist would maintain those relationships in order to do their work," she said. The Ten Eyewitness News crew outside Parliament House in 1982. Left to right: (back) John Crowther, Peter Heap, Bill Errington, (front) Tim Young, David Bartho. (National Archives of Australia) And as more modern forms of media entered the gallery, so did the makeup of the workforce and the h

'Leaks in the urinals': New exhibition explores media's role in political history

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