Sweeping changes: The office comedy set inside Parliament house

When journalist, broadcaster and author Indira Naidoo was asked to audition for new Australian play Housework , a sharp black comedy about the realities for women working in politics and Parliament House, she was surprised.

“I thought, ‘OK, not really my oeuvre’,” Naidoo, a media veteran across TV and radio, says. “‘But let me read the play’. Because it’s always about the play. So I read it and it was just brilliant.”

In Housework , a fictional story inspired by conversations South Australian playwright Emily Steel had with Australian politicians and political and parliamentary staff, Naidoo plays two roles. One is a cleaner working in Parliament House in Canberra and the other is a character kept secret for theatregoers only.

These two roles explore a gap in Australian politics, between people who wield political power and those who are overlooked. They appear beside other characters, including a freshly elected MP and an experienced chief of staff, in a play that unveils the personal, demanding and sometimes farcical side of working in the House.

“The quality of a workplace determines the work that is done there and Parliament is no different a workplace than anyone else’s,” Naidoo says. “For some, you’re in there, you’re exhausted, you’ve been up through the night up with a sick child. Or you can’t be home to be with your sick child because of legislation going through. Add all the other challenges that go with that. You’re not living in your own home. You’re sharing rooms in flats in different suburbs around Canberra. We’re not putting our lawmakers in the best possible environment for them to make the best decisions on our behalf. I don’t think we think about that much either.”

Against a set design inspired by architect Romaldo Giurgola’s Parliament House facade, Housework also features Emily Taheny ( Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell , Comedy Inc ) and Susie Youssef ( Deadloch , The Project ). Directed by Shannon Rush, artistic associate at State Theatre Company South Australia, the play, which premiered at State Theatre Company South Australia production in 2025, originated when Steel spent time at Parliament House in 2022, observing and asking politicians and staff about their daily lives.

“What really struck me was how much motherhood is a barrier to a political career,” Steel says. “Yes, the attitudes of individuals in that world affect women but the structural problems are much bigger. Women were telling me you can now breastfeed in the Chamber and there’s a childcare centre. But they said the difficulty comes when your child starts school, they can’t travel with you any more and, at that point, you have to leave them behind. That was the part that the women I talked to found really difficult.”

It’s why Taheny’s character, chief of staff Anna Cooper, who is trying to juggle family life with a political career, became the heart of the play. Steel didn’t record her conversations with staff and politicians and protects their identities.

“I let people talk about what they want to talk about,” she says.