NSW State Parliament in Macquarie Street, Sydney. The Domain is a public park area, just behind the parliament.
The Domain is a public park area on the eastern side of Macquarie Street, where Hyde Park Barracks, the ancient sandstone Sydney Hospital, the New South Wales State Parliament and the NSW State Library occupy one large block of ultra-prime real estate.
Behind this row of prestigious landmarks is Hostpital Road, a narrow one-way street, and on the other side of that is The Domain. It’s Sydney’s little version of London’s Speakers’ Corner where all the nuts come out to climb on to their wooden “soap boxes” to preach or to argue politics… Except in Sydney, they stand on plastic milk crates.
The other Sunday, when I took a walk past the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which is just s short stroll across The Domain, I saw only three speakers outside on The Domain on the grass, and all three were carrying on vigorously about religion. Years ago, I remember it as much more exciting with heated political debates in full swing.
However, there were a few great hecklers in the audience. They were busy interrupting the speakers and finding fault with everything they tried to say. This is a great sport for some, and is all part of living in a democracy… here we can criticize most things without being arrested for it.
The rest of the time, The Domain is an ordinary park. In fact, it’s just to the south of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Both areas are used by early morning joggers who live in Sydney city. And during the lunch hour, you will see office workers from Martin Place, or staff from the nearby the Sydney Hospital and the NSW State Library. Many of them go to The Domain regularly to enjoy their lunch breaks.
You won’t see many from the NSW State Parliament, because the politicians and their staff get to eat at the Parliament’s own restaurant, where the privileged eat cordon bleu cuisine for what a city office worker has to pay for a cut sandwich lunch. Ah, they do say ‘Rank hath its privileges’, don’t they?
The Domain is also used to stage occasional open-air concerts. Sydneysiders flock to these and sometimes wait all day, sitting on picnic blankets to reserve their place for the free show. And most times the Sydney weather behaves itself by not raining on the audience.
Picture Credit: Image via Wikipedia.
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