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August 23, 2025
Well, it finally happened. Yes, the Usher of the Black Rod, after a fortnight of deliberation, finally delivered a letter upon us on Friday containing our well-deserved medicine: a one-week ban from Parliament House in Canberra.
A ban so sweeping it includes parliament's many precincts and even, for some reason, the carpark. Banished entirely from the building we have been, even under the escort of a nominated pass holder.
This is all because we showed some enterprise this month and revealed Anthony Albanese had gifted a shiny new party-room to the deal-making Greens who he's trying to mush up to because they hold the balance of power in the Senate.
We couldn't believe it ourselves. A brand-spanking new party room while every other opposition party was being smacked with bitter staff cuts and austerity measures. So, we sloped on down to have a look-see and confirm it for ourselves and the Greens got very upset about that.
Years gone by they'd get upset if you tried to dam a river, but now they're upset over convoluted breaches of privacy. Because we'd photographed their secret partyroom, see; the Greens were fine with taxpayers funding its construction, but not with taxpayers actually seeing what they'd paid for.
And how much did the people pay? A whopping amount.
Liberal senator James Paterson discovered the Albanese government shelled out $886,521 for this gift to the Greens. "Even the most lavishly appointed partyroom shouldn't cost that," he said. "People will be entitled to wonder what the government has bought with taxpayer money." We'll go one better and say they're entitled to see it, too.
Enter the Black Rod, the Usher himself (Canberra bureaucrat John Begley). He demanded we "show cause" for this "particularly egregious breach", so of course we made fun of that request and pleaded our case here, in this column a fortnight ago, which Begley read without amusement. "I note your subsequent article," he deadpanned. That was in the letter sealing our fate on Friday.
On he went, contending that people in parliament have a right to "go about their work without their privacy being impeded", a sentiment with which we wholeheartedly agree, except we didn't actually photograph anyone; just a very expensive room with nothing in it. But, while the Black Rod merely bore the bad news, the corporeal aspect of the punishment was actually meted out by the sour-mouthed Senate President Sue Lines, according to the letter. And stoically endure this penalty we shall, for what choice do we have? The ban starts on Monday.
Interesting timing, too, because they've cancelled our pass just in time for a sitting week, but also, it would appear, to deny us entry to the Midwinter Ball, which we weren't invited to anyway. And which we usually don't attend because we neither live nor work in Canberra.
And which was only worth attending when the House Howlers used to perform.