The Prime Ministers Avenue Has Run Out Of Sculpture Money Because We’ve Gone Through So Many PMs
Tony Abbott never got his and he's probably shattered about it.
If you needed concrete proof that Australian politics is just a swirling mess of chaos and dumb luck, look no further than the prestigious Prime Ministers Avenue, a lovely 80-year-old sculpture garden that features busts of Australia’s prime ministers — which hasn’t been updated since 2013.
The Prime Ministers Avenue, which lives in Victoria’s Ballarat Botanical Gardens, has struggled so much to keep up with the unusually erratic revolving door of Australian prime ministers, that they’ve actually run out of money to make more sculptures. Well, that or they just really hate the Liberal Party — Malcolm Turnbull is apparently still waiting for his bust to be made, and they just never got around to making Tony’s.
Julia Gillard, loving it.
The ABC reports that the Mayor of Ballarat Des Hudson, reckons that the Gillard sculpture cost $50,000 and that the federal government should really help pay for the busts that still need to be made. It seems like building five prime minister sculptures in about four years is a very costly exercise.
The best bit in this very funny story, is sculptor Peter Nicholson discussing measuring the prime minister’s heads before creating the busts. Of the bunch, Julia Gillard’s was his favourite to do because he liked her the most, but he’s also careful to mention that she “had a very long measurement from the back of her head to the tip of her nose” which is a delightful and very shady detail to include.
He was due to measure Kevin Rudd’s head on the morning the global financial crisis broke, but because sculpture waits for no man, Peter measured Kevin’s head anyway. “He was extremely jumpy, he was like kind of an athlete in the Olympics who’s about to do 100 metres,” Peter said.
Although Peter won’t be doing the next few sculptures, he did warn whoever is responsible for the next one, that Malcolm Turnbull has “that crooked nose, the big hooded eyelids, he’s got one ear that sort of sticks out” so it’ll probably be a difficult job. No word on Tone’s bust, though.
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Images via the Monument Australia website.