The Last Moments collection: a treasure trove of stories
How does a set of old photos hold the power to transform a visitor’s experience of our building?

The Museum of Australian Democracy acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of country throughout Australia. We recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to the people, the cultures and the elders past, present and emerging.
The museum respectfully acknowledges the role that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to play in shaping Australia’s democracy.
xCloseHow does a set of old photos hold the power to transform a visitor’s experience of our building?
Hilda Abbott was a distinguished guest whose recollections reveal that behind the public performance, VIPs are only people after all.
It took determination, ingenuity and a small piece of string to get Parliament House finished in time for its grand opening in 1927.
Pause at Old Parliament House after dark during Enlighten this weekend and you may see an expanse of somber, sepia-toned faces staring back at you.
Wondering what the Old Parliament House Enlighten 2016 projections mean? This handy guide gives you the low-down on the Old Parliament House Enlighten projections and what they signify.
Measuring temperatures and predicting weather changes in a politically turbulent climate for years, the weather station in the heart of Old Parliament House has recently undergone conservation treatment.
Since 13 October the museum has been running its Twitter project, #Dismissal1975, to commemorate the Whitlam sacking.
As a student of politics and later as a political journalist, the Dismissal was a constant reference point – an Australian moment that has attracted, perhaps, more scholarship, journalism and cultural reflection than just about any other.
Mary Riek was born in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1927. Mary worked in the Parliamentary Library in 1948 and again in 1966-67.
Most of Australia’s migrant and refugee intake has been a product of decisions announced and debated in the Old Parliament House, when it was home to the federal parliament from 1927 to 1988.
Anne Lynch was the first female Deputy Clerk of the Australian Senate.
It’s not many twelve year olds who can say that their words have been collected by a national cultural institution but that is exactly what has happened to Adele, a student from Telopea Park School.
Since news broke of the passing of former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser last Friday, 20th March, the museum has been a place where visitors and passers-by have come to leave messages in a condolence book.
Marcie Cowell moved to Canberra in 1946 and worked as a telephonist for six months at Parliament House. Here she talks about the nature of her work on the switchboards.
In this oral history excerpt, Marjorie Johnson talks about her father who was a gardener and ‘ganger’ of workers on the preparation of the National Rose Garden at the front of Parliament House in the 1930s.
November 15 saw the death of former Fraser government minister Reginald Greive ‘Reg’ Withers at the age of 90.
Jean Salisbury was born in Melbourne in 1922 and died in Canberra in 2014.
Within hours of Gough Whitlam’s death on 21 October tributes were reverentially laid on the front steps of historic Old Parliament House.
Harry Evans was the longest serving Clerk of the Senate, serving from 1988 to 2009. Born at Lithgow in 1946, he died in Canberra on 7 September 2014.
Journalist and author Paul Daley reflects on Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC