"Inside the Canberra Press Gallery : Life in the Wedding Cake of Old Parliament House" by Rob Chalmers

This historical memoir of a career reporting from The Wedding Cake of Old Parliament House offers a rare insider's perspective on both how the gallery once operated and its place in the Australian body politic. Using some of the biggest political developments of the past fifty years as a backdrop, Inside the Canberra Press Gallery – Life in the Wedding Cake of Old Parliament House sheds light on the inner workings of an institution critical to the health of our parliamentary democracy.

Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Preface
1. Youth
2. A Journo in Sydney
3. Inside the Canberra Press Gallery
4. Menzies: The giant of Australian politics
5. Ming’s Men
6. Parliament Disgraced by its Members
7. Booze, Sex and God
8. Evatt, Splits and Garters
9. Out on the Hustings: Getting in the votes
10. Press Secretaries: Before spin doctors
11. The Prime Minister Disappears
12. The Influence Seekers
13. The Coalition Starts to Slide
14. Labor Out of the Wilderness
15. Darkness Descends on Whitlam
16. A New Home
17. New House, New Rules
Epilogue: Changing the game
Bibliography
Names Index
Subject Index


About:
Rob Chalmers (1929-2011) entered the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery in 1951 as a twenty-one-year-old reporter for the now-defunct Sydney Daily Mirror and would retire from political commentary 60 years later – an unprecedented career span in Australian political history. No parliamentary figure – politician, bureaucrat or journalist − can match Chalmers' experience, from his first Question Time on 7 March 1951 until, desperately ill, he reluctantly retired from editing the iconic newsletter Inside Canberra sixty years, four months and eighteen days later.