Queen’s Portrait installed in PM’s Office

PM Abbott has asked for a portrait of the Queen of Australia to hang in his Canberra office. It is a copy of the “wattle portrait” (lots of sparkling jewels) painted by William Dargie in 1954 for the newly-crowned head of state’s first visit to her Australian realm. The original hangs in the entrance foyer at Yarralumla, residence of the Governor-General. Parliamentary Department secretary, Carol Mills, told Senate Estimates that this doubled the number of portraits of QEII in Parliament House. It followed the rapid hanging of portraits of HM in the Prime Minister’s Department in Canberra after the election. We’re going backwards under this Government. ‘Cap d’Antibes’ painted by Winston Churchill has been moved from the Opposition Leader’s office (where no doubt it was fondly in Abbott’s gaze for four long years) and is now in the PM’s suite. Not even dyed-in-wool royalist John Howard, attempted this sort of thing although removing the Australian-made furniture designed by the building’s architects in the PM’s office, in favour of traditional and uncomfortable Chesterfields resonant of a gentleman’s club, was roundly criticised. Symbols do matter.