Wednesday's and Thursday's over-the-top protests at Parliament House could not have been more poorly timed.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
They made the rapid passage of a multi-million dollar security upgrade that will effectively deny visitors access to the building's roof-top lawn almost a foregone conclusion.
The plans, revealed by Fairfax earlier this week, have never been exposed to significant public debate or community scrutiny.
While some Labor and Coalition politicians initially joined the Greens in questioning whether more restrictions on public access were justified, they quickly went to ground after question time was abandoned on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the final sitting day of the year, the upgrades were voted through the lower house not long after abseilers hung a refugee protest banner off the front of the building and dyed the pond red.
It now remains to be seen, given some crossbenchers, including Derryn Hinch, and the Greens have expressed strong opposition, if they can successfully negotiate the Senate.
Under section five of the Parliament Act 1974 "no building or other work is to be erected on land within the parliamentary zone unless [it]... has been approved by resolution of each house of Parliament."
The latest initiatives come on top of the tens of millions of dollars a succession of governments have spent on security and surveillance at the people's house in the past three years.
This includes a $20 million security and surveillance upgrade in August 2015 that makes the building one of the most closely monitored sites in the country.
Other measures, all introduced since a headline-grabbing attack on the Canadian Parliament in October 2014, include the extension of patrols by machine-gun-equipped police to the press gallery corridors in April 2015.
These were introduced at around the same time as a $2 million spend on a 2.6-metre-high fence with complementary concrete bunkers [aka gatehouses] around the ministerial wing.
In addition to closing off public access to the building's iconic lawn roof with more 2.6-metre barriers that are expected to significantly change the precinct's appearance, the latest measures are believed to include cutting down the number of pedestrian entry points. More security barriers, additional fencing around the Senate and House of Representatives entrances and even more machine-gun-equipped police are also understood to be in the mix.
While the critics, of whom there are many, are already cringing at the change in the character about to befall a building conceived as an open and approachable space, their opponents now have the perfect response.
Thursday morning's abseiling attack would have been made considerably more difficult, if not impossible, if the 2.6-metre barriers had been in place.
The saddest thing is that, unlike the peaceful refugee protest that drew 2500 people to Civic on October 30, the extreme nature of this week's events is likely to have done a worthy cause more harm than good.
