Parliamentary Government in Victoria is now more than a century and a half old. It is a story of high and low lights, idealistic dedication and self-serving manipulation, with many colourful figures - but over the decades the development of a great tradition of democratic service to a demanding public with high expectations. In 150 Years of Spring Street - a History of Victorian Government, author Robert Murray concisely describes the birth in the 1850s of democratic, independent government and its progress over fifteen decades.