Canberra's Parliament House is bursting at the seams and authorities there are drawing up plans to spill some of the giant building's activities out into neighbouring suburbs.
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Less than 30 years after it was opened, the national showpiece building is groaning under the weight of up to 10,000 politicians, staffers, journalists, public servants and other workers on busy Parliamentary sitting days.
The Department of Parliamentary Services which has 100 of its public servants working in the subterranean bowels of the building for lack of better quality office space, is now planning for an inevitable move of some functions outside the confines of Capital Hill.
Tenders have gone out to find a private sector firm to draw up a plan for the next 25 years, including the scoping-out of sites and buildings in the surround inner-south suburbs that can be used as spill-over space.
The growing problem of lengthy queues that form outside of the building's main entrances on busy days is also to be tackled in the new masterplan.
When Parliament House was opened in 1988 it was the nation's most expensive building, meant to serve its purpose for 200 years.
But now APH routinely has around 3000 workers and visitors in the building with numbers peaking at up to 10,000 on a busy sitting day as well as 670,000 to 890,000 visitors each year.
As well as providing office accommodation for the 76 Senators and 150 MPs, with the Ministry in a separate wing, space must be found for the four parliamentary departments; the Department of the House of Representatives, Department of Parliamentary Services and the Parliamentary Budget Office.
The ministerial wing is struggling to keep pace with the growth of the executive with nine parliamentary secretaries squeezed into modified MP's offices and another three in modified Senate suites.
The swelling ranks of ministerial staffers are also putting the squeeze on and planners will have to find a way to "improve space efficiency in existing executive suites to accommodate staff productively due to changing function and increased staffing levels over the past 25 years".
More space must be found in the House of Reps wing of the building for "administrative activities" and additional offices are needed to support Senate Committee activities.
The press wing, on the Senate side of the building, is described in the tender papers a "highly populated" requiring a high standard of power supply and air conditioning for broadcast studios and technical suites.
The Department of Parliamentary Services itself, which has had a troubled recent history, is not happy with its own office space arrangements with 100 of its public servants consigned to work in the basement.
But there are no easy solutions available, the tender documents reveal, with firms vying for the planning work expected to consider a complex range of factors.
"The ranking and assessment of those functions taken off-site must be considered in service delivery, operational risk, and travel times as would any Commonwealth agency considering splitting functions and determining the degree of acceptable separation and operational benefits/costs and risks," the tender documents state.
There must be: "consideration of asset options within proximity to APH, through Commonwealth property portfolio, Commonwealth lease options, and private sector leasing.
"The size, timing, benefits/risks, and policy implications of this option are to be taken into account in the overall masterplan."
