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Australia Parliament House

1988 Proof Five Dollar

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The new Parliament House was first opened in 1988 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Royal Australian Mint issued this commemorative five dollar piece to celebrate the opening. The reverse of the coin was designed by Stuart Devlin and depicts the iconic Parliament House along with the denomination "5 DOLLARS". The obverse shows the Raphael Maklouf effigy of HM Queen Elizabeth II, right-facing and wearing a crown. Included in the design is the legend "ELIZABETH II AUSTRALIA 1988".

1901 is the year of the first official meeting of the Australian Federal Parliament at which time meetings were held in Melbourne at the Victorian Parliament House. Debates were held for a number of years concerning the matter of the best location for the nations permanent Parliament building. There were a number of specifications that had to be fulfilled through the location and as the two largest cities of Sydney and Melbourne could not be considered as options, Canberra, New South Wales was chosen. World War 1 was happening at the time, which contributed to the delay of the completion of the provincial Parliament House, now known as Old Parliament House in 1927. Parliament was held in this building for the next 60 years over which time many important decisions were made and Australia as a nation went through a period of great change and development. The Old Parliament House is now open to the public and is occupied by the Museum of Australian Democracy. The New Parliament House, also located in Canberra was opened by her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II on May 9th 1988. The architectural company Mitchell/Giurgola designed it, after winning a competition started in 1978.

The architects of Parliament House had many aspects to take in to consideration with grandiosity and magnitude only being a couple. The parliamentary Triangle which is referred to as the representative centre of the city took on great consideration. The new Parliament House needed to be viewed as a distinguished part of Canberra, but its presence should not monopolize the city based on its architectural lay out. The architect, Romaldo Giurgola commented: "We felt if Australia's new Parliament House was to speak honestly about its purpose, it could not be built on top of the hill as this would symbolise government imposed upon the people. The building should nest with the hill; symbolically rise out of the Australian landscape, as true democracy rises from the state of things". The Parliament House building was the largest development site in the Southern Hemisphere of Australia in the 1980s. The area consisted of 7.5 hectares of the total 32 hectare site. A substantial space consisting of one fifth of the superstructure is open to the general public for viewing. It is renowned as one of Canberra's largest tourist attractions.