Between 1964 and 1984, Barrie Virtue OBE served as press secretary, private secretary and principal private secretary to the Rt. Hon. Doug Anthony. Matters relating to trade were among his highest priorities during this period.
This is a rather different item from our Oral History collection: a recording of a radio campaign speech rather than an edited excerpt from an interview. In this broadcast, Sir Earle Page GCMG MP (1880-1961), who had been Deputy Prime Minister since 1923, sees industrial relations as the main issue for the 1929 election.
Joan Child, AO, was Australia’s first female Speaker of the House of Representatives. Her death on 23 February 2013 has been mourned by all sides of politics. When elected in 1974, she was the Australian Labor Party’s first female Member of the House and only the fourth woman to sit in the House.
Jessie Bennett came to Canberra as a trainee librarian in 1947 when the Parliamentary Library and the National Library were combined. Such were the attitudes of the times that she recalls how neighbouring farmers wondered why her father would allow a country girl from Tongala in the Goulburn River valley, Victoria, to go to university—after all, she was only a woman!
Our 300th oral history recording made quite an impact thanks to a promotional competition organised with 666 ABC Canberra to select the 300th interviewee. The winner was Quentin O’Keefe who had worked in the Provisional Parliament House as a casual bar attendant in 1974.
In September, the museum, in association with 666 ABC Canberra, hosted a competition to find our 300th oral history recording. Fantastic submissions were received from individuals who had worked in the building when it was home to the federal parliament however there can only be one winner.
666 ABC Canberra Mornings presenter, Alex Sloan, and museum historian, Dr Barry York, are sharing stories from the museum’s oral history collection during September. The latest theme from the collection is ‘librarians and journalists’.
666 ABC Canberra Mornings presenter, Alex Sloan, and museum historian, Dr Barry York, are sharing stories from the museum’s oral history collection during September. The latest theme from the collection is ‘bygone jobs’.
666 ABC Canberra Mornings presenter, Alex Sloan, and museum historian, Dr Barry York, are sharing stories from the museum’s oral history collection during September. The latest theme from the collection is ‘staffers to prime ministers’.
666 ABC Canberra Mornings presenter, Alex Sloan, and museum historian, Dr Barry York, will be sharing stories from the oral history collection during September.
Alan Cumming Thom (1928-2007) was an officer of the Senate for 33 years (1955-1988) and Clerk of the Senate for six years (1982-1988).
Annette Holden, a full-time journalist at the ABC from 1985 to 1989, recalls the lively ball organised by the Press Gallery on 13 August 1988 to mark the end of the Provisional Parliament House.
In November last year, I blogged about an old bottle of port—an empty bottle, I hasten to add!—which I donated to the museum. Arising from that report, the museum received a donation of three other political campaign bottles, and has been notified by readers of their own bottle collections at home.
Hec McMillan grew up in Canberra from 1926. In this excerpt from an interview recorded in 1996 he recalls the national capital in the mid-1920s.
In the mid-1920s, construction of the Provisional Parliament House meant that Canberra provided job opportunities for hundreds of workers and tradesmen from around the nation. Indeed, some say it was the largest construction site in Australia at that time.
The Hon. Michael MacKellar represented Warringah in the House of Representatives between 1969 and 1994 and held five ministerial posts between 1975 and 1982.
Myrna Grose OAM, radio actor, producer and broadcaster, grew up in Canberra from 1927 and, in this excerpt she recalls the freedom of being a child in Canberra in the 1930s.
Frank Jennings was Senior Private Secretary to Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies from 1963 to 1966.
Cheryl Cartwright moved to Canberra from Melbourne in 1978 to work as a secretary for Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.
In this oral history excerpt, veteran journalist, Wallace ‘Wal’ Brown, recalls how Prime Minister Robert Menzies gave him a scoop – without saying a word!
