A new seat of power
By Mark Douglas
The extraordinary images on this page documents how a toilet came to be cemented into place in front of Parliament House on North Terrace on Prosh Day, 7 August 1970. They capture mischief conceived, once again, by University of Adelaide engineering students.
In recent issues, Lumen has revealed the perpetrators of two significant Uni pranks – those who hung the FJ from the Uni footbridge in 1971, and the trio who hung a life-sized mannequin from the Elder Hall spire in 1952.
Yet the masterminds behind the FJ prank often refer to this Parliament House toilet stunt as the greatest ever perpetrated by the Adelaide University Engineering Society (AUES).
Here’s how it happened.
In the era of huge anti-Vietnam war protests, the AUES decided to create a fictional protest march – the “anti-demonstration demonstration”. Under cover of this well-attended phony march to Parliament, protesting nothing, as noisily as possible, AUES students carried a makeshift platform to become the stage for the demonstration.
An anonymous Lumen contributor, who went by the name of “The Phantom”, shared some of these images, writing: “Unknown to most of the people partaking in this exercise, the ‘stage’ concealed people carrying a toilet, buckets, water, a digging implement, a crowbar, reinforcing steel and some specially formulated quick-setting concrete.”
Speakers atop the platform addressed the assemblage, while Members of Parliament looked on. Meantime, the people beneath the stage were working furiously to cement the toilet into place. When the protest ended, their work was revealed.
“When the crowd dispersed, people heading home via the railway station were greeted by a mysterious toilet pan in the middle of the footpath,” The Phantom wrote. “One kind soul came back and erected a keep left sign so that no-one tripped over it.”
Hamish Robson, a leading participant in the engineering group which hung the FJ off the footbridge the following year, recalls that Chris Stanley and AUES President Andrew Fletcher were under the platform, while he, his cousin John Hendrickson and Flett Steele were above. Hamish said former Premier Steele Hall “climbed onto the platform at one stage and delivered a stirring address that further whipped up the enthusiasm of the crowd”.
As the AUES magazine, Hysteresis, later stated: “The Anti-Demo Demo has since become a legend.”
Mark Douglas is Editor of Lumen. Images supplied, and courtesy Hysteresis magazine 1970 from the Barr Smith Library collection.
