When people say “Macquarie Street” in a political story, they usually mean this block: Parliament House, sitting in the northern wing of Governor Lachlan Macquaries “Rum Hospital,” completed in 1816. No Imperial cash for a permanent hospital, so Macquarie let the contractors import and sell spirits — hence the nickname that stuck. The colonnaded façade is among the oldest public building fabric still in continual governmental use in Australia. Further south, The Mint keeps the matching southern wing of the same hospital complex.
The Legislative Council of New South Wales — Australia’s first legislature — was created in 1823 and first met elsewhere, including Government House. From 1829 the Council used rooms in the hospital’s northern Surgeon’s Quarters; a session on 21 August 1829 marks the start of continuous parliamentary occupation of this site. As membership grew, Colonial Architect Mortimer Lewis added a new chamber (1843). Responsible government in 1856 created a bicameral parliament: the Legislative Assembly took the older chamber while the Legislative Council moved into a prefabricated iron building shipped from Melbourne and erected on the southern side of the precinct — still part of the complexs layered fabric.
Walk the colonnade today and you are standing in a Rum Hospital that outlasted Francis Greenway’s complaints about shoddy work. Public tours and education programs tell the journey from infirmary to modern parliament.