A vibrant place in the heart of the city, Canberra Museum and Gallery celebrates the region's social history and visual arts with dynamic exhibitions and unique community programs and events.

Housing a permanent collection, Reflecting Canberra, and a variety of local, national and international exhibitions, CMAG provides a refreshing insight to the integration of social history and the visual arts.

Reflections

Top: ACT Legislative Assembly Ballot Paper, 1989
printed ink on paper, with pen and ink
drawings by Geoff Pryor
and autographs (1992)
Purchase 2008

Below: Detail
Dennis Stevenson and
Michael Moore

GOVERNANCE COLLECTION

Humorous elements of the first ACT election, held in March 1989, have now achieved folk status. The extraordinary length of the ballot paper – just over one metre, the two-month period taken to count votes under the modified D’Hondt electoral system, and the participation of parties such as the Sun Ripened Warm Tomato Party, the Surprise Party and the Party! Party! Party! Party, all added to the funny side of the election of the fledgling ACT Legislative Assembly.

Michael Moore was elected to the first Assembly on the Residents Rally ticket. At the time of the second election in 1992 Moore, then heading up the Michael Moore Independents Group, commissioned cartoonist Geoff Pryor to draw caricatures of members of the first Assembly on an original ballot paper as a fundraising item. The elected members were all asked to autograph the original. They appear from left to right: Dennis Stevenson, Michael Moore, Norm Jensen, Hector Kinloch, Bernard Collaery, Bill Wood, Eleanor Grassby, Wayne Berry, Paul Whalan, Rosemary Follett, Craig Duby, Carmel Maher, David Prowse, Bill Stefaniak, Robyn Nolan, Gary Humphries & Trevor Kaine.