Museum of Australian Democracy

   

   - darkometer rating: 2 -

 

The former seat of the Australian government and parliament in Canberra from 1927 to 1988, when it was moved to the New Parliament House. The now redundant predecessor was preserved and has since 2009 housed the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD); and that includes a few darkish aspects.

More background info: After the Australian colonies federated in 1901 to form the Commonwealth nation of independent Australia, a debate started as to what should be the new entity’s capital city. Canberra was chosen as a compromise solution for a new capital city to be built from scratch, as neither of the big rivals Sydney and Melbourne would have let the other one receive the title of national capital.

 

Well, for years Melbourne did house the parliament while the new capital, officially named Canberra in 1913, was constructed. World War One interrupted and delayed the work and so it wasn’t until 1923 that construction of the original Parliament House began. Then in 1927 the purpose-built edifice was finally ready and the whole government and parliament moved out of Melbourne and into their new home in Canberra.

 

For more on the political system behind the bicameral parliamentary democracy of Australia, see under (New) Parliament House.

 

Interestingly, the first parliament building was never supposed to be a permanent home for parliament, but only “provisional” and designed to last at most 50 years. During that time it saw several extensions, with new annexes, including for the Prime Minister, yet in its final years there was a notorious lack of office space.

 

In the end the old Parliament House narrowly outlived that envisioned time span of 50 years, when government and parliament finally moved to the newly opened New Parliament House further up the hill in 1988.

 

It was then open for debate as to what should be done with the now redundant old parliament building. Some favoured demolition – partly in order to provide for an uninterrupted view from the New Parliament House all the way to the Australian War Memorial at the other end of the central axis of the National Triangle. But in the end the voices calling for preservation of the historic building won the upper hand.

 

The rooms, chambers and offices were more or less left the way they were when the politicians and staff moved out, with most of the interior designs in the annexes in a 1970s style. The Museum of Australian Democracy was then added and it opened in 2009.

 

 

What there is to see: The building of the Old Parliament is in a stripped-down neoclassical architectural style, not as grand and symbolism-laden as the successor New Parliament House, but still pretty impressive.

 

Inside, one of the highlights is seeing the two former chambers of parliament, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both look quite a bit smaller and more intimate than their newer equivalents in the current Parliament House up the hill. The old House of Representatives also looks a lot more similar to the British House of Commons that it is clearly modelled on. There’s also a lot less separation between frontbenchers and backbenchers and the benches are indeed all benches, not seats as is mostly the case in the new House.

 

In the centre is the so-called King’s Hall, which is where the parliamentarians would have been meeting informally in between sessions (something that is different in the New Parliament House too).

 

Visitors can also amble through the former Prime Minster’s Suite, which has been pretty much preserved as it was when the government and its staff moved out. You can see the PM’s desk, his private bathroom and several offices that do look like the staff have only just left the rooms for a break. The interiors are very reminiscent of the 1970s, and they even left ashtrays full of cigarette butts in place for period authenticity … (see the photo gallery below!)

 

Also preserved/restored/recreated and visitable are the Cabinet Room with its original cabinet table and an adjacent kitchenette, the Speaker’s Suite including a fully laid dinner table, kitchen and a replica of the Speaker’s seat (throne, more like) as well as the Government and Opposition Party Rooms.

 

In one room there’s a large screen on which several interviews with past PMs are played in a loop. In these interviews the former PMs were asked to appraise the achievements of their predecessors (or successors), which made for really quite interesting viewing, as they basically had to say good things about their political enemies (at least in some cases)!

 

And then there are the exhibitions. The general one is all about Australian democracy, how it works, what its institutions are, what the voting system is like and how it changed over the past century, and of course all the PMs, from the beginning to the present day. It even ventures a look into the future (e.g. could one day even an Aboriginal become PM?).

 

There are interactive stations where visitors can test their knowledge of the constitution and the country’s democratic inner workings or who can and who cannot vote (and for what reasons). All this is obviously aimed more at domestic visitors than foreign tourists.

   

One section focuses on the 1954 visit to Australia and this Parliament House by the then rather freshly crowned Queen Elizabeth II, one of the first of her official visits abroad in her long reign.

 

A separate exhibition in one of the building’s wings is about one specific PM, namely John Howard, who was in office between 1996 and 2007 – at 11 years the second longest tenure in Australian history. And a lot happened in the world during that period!

 

Covered are issues like the introduction of tougher gun possession laws after the 1996 massacre at Port Arthur (although the December 2025 mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney has shown that the problem has not gone away) or Australia’s military involvement abroad (Iraq and Afghanistan in particular). This also includes the decisive role Australia played in securing the transition to independence of East Timor, its almost direct neighbour to the north that had for decades been occupied by Indonesia (see East Timorese history).

 

One section covers 9/11, the September 2001 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, in which several Australians were also killed. Furthermore there’s a section on political activists, and various darker moments in Australian history are dealt with openly (e.g. the 1975 constitutional crisis).

 

There’s lots more, including temporary exhibitions, but for our purposes this overview shall have to suffice. All in all I found the Old Parliament House and the Museum of Australian Democracy more engaging than I would have expected. I’m glad I included it in my short visit to Canberra, even if there wasn’t so much for dark tourism other than those aspects briefly indicated above.

 

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UPDATE: parts of the museum, including the Prime Minster’s Suite, Speaker’s Suite and the old Cabinet Room are currently closed for refurbishment. Work is scheduled to last until the end of 2026.

 

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Location: at 18 King George Terrace, Canberra, ACT, Australia; about 750m north of the New Parliament House and a similar distance from of the southern shores of Lake Burley Griffin, while the livelier Civic and Braddon districts of the city are nearly two miles (3 km) away.

 

Google Maps locator: [-35.3019, 149.1299]

 

 

Access and costs: a bit outside the city’s livelier part, but not hard to get to; free.

 

Details: Unless you are staying in the neighbouring Barton district, from where it’s walkable, you will most likely need transport (or face a 45-minute walk along wide busy avenues not ideal for pedestrians). Several bus lines (2, 6, 7, 10, 57, 58) have stops nearby and depart from (or near) the City Interchange in the Civic and Braddon districts, which is more likely the area you’d be staying in (see under Canberra >accommodation).

 

I used the “Explorer Loop” minibus service to get to the two parliament buildings and back – see under Canberra >getting around.

 

If you are driving your own (hire) car, please note that the regular short-stay car parks next to the building are not free, and only a few machines accept coins (but you can pay by credit card). Free accessible parking is available right in front of the entrance.

 

Opening times: daily (except Christmas Day) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

 

Admission is free.

 

 

Time required: I spent well over an hour in this place, but you’d need significantly longer than that to read and watch absolutely everything that is on offer here. I skimmed quite a few bits.

 

 

Combinations with other dark destinations: Directly across the street from the entrance to the Old Parliament House is the so-called Aboriginal Tent Embassy. This started in 1972 with protests by four Aboriginals over Indigenous land rights and other issues of discrimination against the original native peoples of Australia. It’s still going, making it the longest continuous such protest in the world. It’s no longer just tents, but also somewhat more permanent containers, and the place is in constant flux. The focus of the posters displayed when I was there was on “black deaths in custody” (one claiming that alleged “suicides” are actually “murder”). Other signs said “camp closed” and indeed I didn’t see any Aboriginals in attendance, only two in sculpture form playing mock didgeridoos in front of a fluffy toy koala. Next to the camp large letters on the lawn spell out the word “Sovereignty”.

 

Just a bit further up the hill (Capital Hill aka Capitol Hill or Parliament Hill) to the south is the New Parliament House that replaced the old one. It’s also worth a look, even though there isn’t that much in it that is dark, only a few little details are.

 

The “Explorer Loop” minibus service makes it easy to combine those two places also with the Australian War Memorial and the National Museum of Australia.

 

See under Canberra.

 

 

Combinations with non-dark destinations: Much of the place is rather of a non-dark, celebratory nature itself. And fairly close by are several other of Canberra’s major attractions, such as the National Gallery, the National Library or the “Questacon” science museum.

 

See also under Canberra in general.