By Helen Musa

Members of the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery crammed into Old Parliament House last night for what all on hand agreed was “a special celebration”.

That celebration was a double-whammy: 125 years of the Press Gallery itself, which began in Melbourne in 1901, and the launch of a new exhibition curated by the Museum of Australian Democracy’s Amy Lay, taking visitors inside the original working spaces of the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery.

It was the occasion for many a tall story, not least from federal Arts Minister Tony Burke who, in opening the exhibition, praised MOAD chair Barrie Cassidy and other veterans of Old Parliament House, which he described as “very much the Cockington Green” if compared with New Parliament House.

Burke allowed himself a few observations about the old House, which had housed too few women, too few multicultural members and First Nations people. But alongside that negative, and the fact that people were forced in on top of each other so that politicians could be easily accosted by Press Gallery members, there was, all along, he said, “the reassuring heartbeat of democracy.”

Vice-president of the Press Gallery, Katrina Curtis, from The West Australian, stepped up to the mic to announce the winners of the Press Gallery’s unique lifetime achievement awards, which went to veteran journalists Laurie Oakes and Michelle Grattan, who could not be present but who had, Curtis said, broken “many a glass ceiling”.

Oakes, who was nicknamed by former PM John Howard “the budget burglar”, was honoured alongside Grattan by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who praised both recipients for the three I’s — intelligence, integrity and independence — describing them as journalists in the truest sense.

Being in the old House conjured up some special memories for Mr Albanese, who had worked as a staffer for four years under former MP Tom Uren.

“I literally got to know Paul Keating at the urinal,” he said, adding that at the new Parliament House it was “difficult to suck up to members of the press on the night before budget night.”

At the old House, parliamentarians had met journos under a tree and veteran Mungo MacCallum put out live broadcasts from a phone on the wall, so everybody had to be quiet.

He praised Grattan for her fastidious fact-checking, agreeing with his predecessor Julia Gillard that if Oakes came to a press conference it made you very nervous.

Journalism matters because “we need to be held to account,” Mr Albanese asserted.

Unsurprisingly, it was Oakes who stole the show. Describing his honour as “very nice”, he spoke of the “joie de journalism”.

He said he believed that bagging today’s journalists was unfair because the job was getting harder, with a growing army of public relations people and timorous public servants.

“I reckon today’s Gallery does pretty well,” he said.

Oakes, giving what he suspected might be his last speech, added: “I can’t think of a better job.”

The Press Gallery Exhibition, open daily at the Museum of Australian Democracy, Old Parliament House, free of charge.