If you've ever been to a function in the Members' Dining Room at Old Parliament House, you'll know it's a lovely place. But on this day in 1969, the non-members' bar and dining room was panned as the "sloppiest in the country".
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A Government backbencher Mr McLeay, a South Australian Liberal, had used an adjournment debate to call the facilities "unbelievably crude".
"This area set aside for non-members is the strongest argument for knocking down the old part of this building," he said.
The bar "by any standards in any Australian city must be classed as one of the most uncomfortable, sloppiest in the country."
The ladies' lounge - known as "the snake pit" - was a bare room about 20 feet square, the report said.
The Speaker Mr Aston said cost estimates to improve non-members' facilities had been sought and plans were afoot to improve things.
"We now have three alternative plans for alterations to Parliament House".
Also on this day, the annual cost of running Canberra was revealed to be $93.9m in the previous year. Of course Canberrans were fine enough taxpayers, and so the cost of running the capital was less than $6 million more than was raised.