On the first day of the new parliament after Tasmania's 1998 state election, new and returning members were too excited to notice one person enter the House of Assembly with a strange object tucked under her arm.
The buzz of chatter abruptly turned into gasps when lone Greens MP Peg Putt unfolded a flimsy camp chair and plonked it into the gap between the government and opposition benches, and sat down.
"It was really a statement of defiance, and that (the Greens) would endure," recalled Ms Putt, nearly a quarter of a century later.
"The front page of the newspaper the next morning, I think, had photos from three different angles."
Earlier that year, 10 of the 35 green leather chairs that House of Assembly members sat in had been removed from the chamber, leaving a large space where the seats occupied by crossbenchers had been.
The two largest parties in the state, Labor and the Liberals, had voted together to reduce the size of the house from 35 to 25 members.
They argued the change would save money and reduce chances of elections resulting in unstable minority governments.
But the Greens were sure it was designed to reduce their influence, by making it harder for Green or independent candidates to get elected.
There had been four Greens MPs in the house after the 1996 election, but Ms Putt was the only Green elected in 1998.
"I was determined that there was no way that I was going to be relegated to sitting with one of those major parties, and that the Greens would stay strong and we would get the parliament restored one day," Ms Putt said.
"In the meanwhile, I was going to hold that space by going and putting my little folding camp chair down and sitting there in the place where the crossbenchers had been unceremoniously removed."
'You've got to have the courage of your convictions'
The Tasmanian Greens steadfastly argued for a return to 35 seats in the House of Assembly.
By 2010, there was agreement among the leaders of the Tasmanian Greens, Liberals and Labor that the reduction to 25 members had been a mistake.
The consensus was that it had reduced effective representation, damaged the functioning of the committee system that scrutinises the government, given ministers unsustainable workloads and left only a limited pool of candidates for recounts in the event of member's resigning.
But while they agreed in principle that numbers should be restored, no premier or opposition leader would commit to legislating the change.
Until in May 2022 new Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff made a surprise announcement, pledging to table a bill to restore the House to 35 members before the end of the year.
"It won't be a popular issue for Tasmanians," Mr Rockliff told state parliament.
"We all recognise the need for this to happen … and sometimes you've got to have the courage of your convictions and do what's right."
The bill was supported unanimously in the House of Assembly earlier this month.
This week it also passed the Legislative Council unamended, although some members lamented that a lack of consultation about the bill meant an opportunity for broader reform had been missed.
The change will come into effect at the next state election, when Tasmanians will elect seven members in each of the five House of Assembly divisions.
Chair 'should be in some sort of museum'
Ms Putt said she was overjoyed the House of Assembly has been restored to 35 members.
"I'm so happy that it's happened. I can't tell you how overjoyed I am. I'm quite emotional about it," she said.
"Because it was such a dreadful thing to do to Tasmania's democracy."
As for that camp chair, it wasn't in good repair even when Ms Putt first found it in her garage and carried it into the parliament in 1988.
"The chair was nearly in a state of collapse when I sat on it, actually and I was a little worried about whether the whole stunt might come tumbling down, literally."
The Greens later auctioned it off, with the winning bid made by Man Booker prize-winning Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan.
Ms Putt said a former Australian Greens leader later reclaimed the chair.
"Christine Milne's got it now, she thinks it should be in some sort of museum," she said.
