'Strangers' gallery at South Australia House of Assembly renamed 'public' after primary students' suggestion
The public (formerly called the strangers) gallery at South Australia's House of Assembly is above the speaker's gallery for invited guests. At the other end of the House of Assembly, above the speaker's chair, is the gallery for Hansard and media reporters (bottom right).
Images courtesy South Australian parliament and Adelaide member of parliament Lucy Hood.
The traditional name for the South Australian parliament House of Assembly’s strangers gallery was changed to the public gallery in 2022.
A similar change had been made 20 years ago by parliament in other Australian states and the federal parliament and in the United Kingdom where the term “strangers" originated as referring to those present in Parliament who were not members of parliament or staff.
The South Australian House of Assembly’s vote to to change the name was prompted by Year 6 students from inner northern Adelaide suburb Prospect Primary School who visited parliament house six months previously. They thought the strangers gallery name "had such a negative connotation", according to the school's principal Karen Duval: "As soon as they saw the word 'strangers', they didn't feel like that was going to be a respectful place [which is] something we instil in our students where they'd feel like they'd want to come and feel comfortable and have a voice."
The students wrote a letter to local Adelaide member of parliament Lucy Hood and assistant minister to the premier Emily Bourke to suggest changing the name. Duval said the students didn't think anything would happen because of their young age but were very excited to see they were successful. "The thing for us with the students was they were extremely proud of their ability to articulate their thinking and to then be creatively asked the question on why the gallery had such a negative connotation”.
Bourke said the House of Assembly voted out a tradition that no longer aligned with the community's values: "Kids are often taught 'stranger danger', but the first sign that all our schoolkids are seeing, and all members of the public are seeing when they pop into parliament to see the very people that people have elected to put into the people's house is the word 'stranger', so it's not at all a welcoming term."
The South Australian parliament upper house, the Legislative Council, still had a strangers gallery, with that chamber yet to vote on changing the name. There was also a strangers' dining room in parliament. Babies were allowed into the South Australian parliament in 2021 for breastfeeding and bottle feeding after previously being refused entry as "strangers".
