The Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett is partly right. A new official residence should be built for the Prime Minister in Canberra. But he is wrong to suggest that an official residence need be built for the Prime Minister in Melbourne as well. Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Hobart will join the queue.
The present lodge is “”dingy dark and out-of-date” according to Chief Minister Kate Carnell. Indeed a place fitting such a description seems ideally suited to be a residence for the Treasurer – a working residence close to Parliament House, very suited to the long haul of the Budget process. And the Treasurer should have a residence in Canberra.
The Prime Minister, on the other hand, should have a residence on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin with appropriate offices and where he or she could entertain international and national visitors.
The first thing to do is to abandon the inappropriate name lodge. Lodgings indicate impermanence, or a secondary house for a gatekeeper. Sure, an individual Prime Minister is temporary, but the presence of the office in the nation’s capital is permanent.
The standard of the building, facilities and vista should be so high that no PM would want to be so insular as to stay in his or her home town.
Most Prime Ministers would be fearful of the political consequences of being seen to feather their own nest. It is never the time to spend money on politicians. However, given that Mr Howard does not propose to live in Canberra, he could not be so accused and perhaps he is ideally placed to begin the project. If he doesn’t, a future Prime Minister should not shy away from the project on that ground given that it would take more years to build that the average tenure of a Prime Minister and so the initiating Prime Minister would not be likely to enjoy the fruits of the decision to build.