Chapter 3—Report on performance
Key performance indicator:
Increase awareness of the new role of OPH
as a museum exploring the past, present and future of Australian
democracy
Visitation
As indicated in Table 3, 2009–10 saw a 7 per cent increase in visitor numbers. This suggests a trend towards a return to visitation the departure from the building of the National Portrait Gallery in April 2008.
| 2005–06 | 2006–07 | 2007–08 | 2008–09 | 2009–10 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total visitors | 181,589 | 174,642 | 208,046 | 175,455 | 188,357 |
| Change from previous year (%) | +1.6 | –3.8 | +19.1 | –15.7 | +7.0 |
(Note—includes school program and exhibition area visitation)
Growth in visitor numbers, which began with the May 2009 opening of the Museum of Australian Democracy initiatives, continued through most 2009–10, as indicated in Figure 2. Figure 3 shows increases in visitation across all on-site activities.
Figure 2 Trends in total monthly visitor numbers, 2008–09 and 2009–10
(Note—includes school program and exhibition area visitation)
Figure 3 Total visitors, by activity, 2007–08 to 2009–10
(Note—includes school program and exhibition area visitation; figures for travelling exhibitions have only been collected since 2008–09)
Website
The agency’s website (moadoph.gov.au) received 246,301 visits, as shown in Figure 4. The target was 292,568, a 5 per cent increase on the 2008–09 figure of 278,637. In line with the new onsite exhibition components, the website was rebranded and an evaluation was undertaken. As a result of the evaluation, a restructure of the site was necessary along with the introduction of museum-related content. Marketing of the website was not undertaken while these elements were being developed. The restructure and new content will be added in late 2010, after which a further evaluation will be untertaken. It is envisaged that the enhanced website will attract a higher level of visitation.
Figure 4 Website traffic, 2005–06 to 2009–10
Promotion and media coverage
Marketing initiatives during the year aimed to increase onsite visitation by strengthening public awareness, and to influence preferences and intentions to visit, through the use of public relations and advertising activities.
During 2009–10, a new public relations campaign, Uncensored Conversations, was launched. The campaign involved a series of three events revolving around themes that were topical and related to Australian democracy. The topics covered were immigration, asylum seekers and refugees; government involvement or intrusion; and freedom of speech and censorship. The speakers, who shared their personal stories on the themes with an open audience, were a diverse group of prominent Australians. Combined attendance across the three events was 383 people, and podcasts of the events were made available through the agency website.
Monitoring indicated that media coverage from December 2009 to June 2010, including the February–June 2010 period of the campaign, was equivalent to $3.2 million worth of advertising space and included 1,395 press, broadcast and internet stories. This was a substantial increase compared to the previous evaluation period (May 2009 to November 2009), when 575 relevant stories were monitored.
What people said about the public relations campaign
This brings together some of our brightest thinkers to debate topics currently shaping Australian democracy. I am hugely interested in the overall concept and would love to do something on it.
— Managing Editor, X-Press Magazine
We attended last night’s uncensored conversation and thoroughly enjoyed it. Enlightening as well as thought provoking. Thank you to all who made it happen and we will book in for the next conversation when bookings open.
— Canberra resident
Overall, public relations activities during 2009–10 generated around $4.4 million worth of advertising space and 1,970 press, broadcast and internet local and national stories. The overall tenor of media stories was more than 98 per cent positive. Media coverage was independently evaluated by Media Monitors.
General public awareness of the museum, as evaluated through online surveys, increased by 5.5 per cent in 2009–10. The greatest increase was among respondents living in the Australian Capital Territory (12 per cent).
Advertising in 2009–10 included television, outdoor, press and print advertising. Initiatives particularly targeted Australian Capital Territory residents and their visiting friends and relatives. Advertising contributed to an increase of 4 per cent in visitation from local and national visitors, excluding school visitation (from 103,172 visitors in 2008–09 to 107,278 in 2009–10). Advertising initiatives also contributed to the increase of 12 per cent in awareness among local residents. Online surveys in December 2009 and June 2010 showed that awareness of the Museum of Australian Democracy within the Australian Capital Territory increased from 47 per cent in December 2009 to 59 per cent in June 2010.
In January 2010 I visited Old Parliament House to learn about government and democracy. ‘When I was there I entered a competition. I wrote that democracy means: Having a say in what the rules are in my year two class and at home. My vote is worth the same as everyone else. And I won! I was announced as the winner on Mix 106.3 FM radio. It was one of the best days of my life!
— Letter from a boy about a January 2010 children’s promotion
An important focus for the year’s marketing activities was to establish the ‘Museum of Australian Democracy’ brand both internally and externally. External branding initiatives aimed to ensure consistency between the advertising and the actual visitor experience. Internal branding activities were implemented to increase staff awareness and understanding of the brand and its application to the visitor experience.
I enjoy working in a team of passionate, skilled and professional people. The vision for MoAD is inspiring; through it I feel my work is worthwhile and that I am making a difference in awareness of Democracy and democratic participation. I also value working in an aesthetically pleasing and historically significant heritage building.
— Staff member
During 2009–10, the agency continued cooperative activities within the Australian Capital Territory tourism sector. It worked closely with Australian Capital Tourism and was a member of various tourism bodies, including the National Capital Attractions Association and the Canberra Convention Bureau. Along with other local cultural attractions and tourism bodies, the agency participated in Australian Capital Tourism’s Culture Shock marketing campaign, which aimed to stimulate short-break visitation to the region. The successful outcome of this partnership increased awareness of the museum, and provided national publicity opportunities.
Details of 2009–10 expenditure on advertising and market research, under s. 311A of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, are in Appendix K (page 153).
Visitor profile
Figure 5 gives a breakdown of onsite visitation by visitor origin, showing that the largest group of visitors were residents of New South Wales.
Figure 5 Proportion of exhibition visitors, by place of residence, 2008–09 and 2009–10
(Note—above breakdown includes only exhibition visitors; it excludes school and function visitation)
Exit surveys carried out during 2009–10 indicate that:
- the average age of visitors was 50.5 years
- the gender balance was skewed towards male visitors
- 52 per cent of visitors were repeat visitors.
Australian Prime Ministers Centre Activities
The Australian Prime Ministers Centre continued to fulfil its primary objectives during the year. These included raising public awareness of Australia’s prime ministers, improving access to prime ministerial material in such sources as archives, libraries and other collections, and providing a national focus for prime ministerial research and scholarship. In meeting these objectives, the Australian Prime Ministers Centre continued to provide a public research centre and reference service, collaborated with institutions holding prime ministerial material, and administered its research program.
Research and reference
The centre continued to operate its research room and reference area, which are open to the public five days a week and house a range of reference materials for visitors and researchers. Staff assisted visitors with questions about prime ministers, general political history and the building, and provided a free reference enquiry service for external clients. During the year, 3,500 people visited the reference area, 360 enquiries were handled in the reading room and 54 remote enquiries were responded to by telephone or email. All reference enquiries were dealt with within 10 working days.
The Prime Facts series of information leaflets was expanded to include 10 titles on opposition leaders in addition to titles on all prime ministers, including Australia’s twenty-seventh prime minister, the Hon Julia Gillard MP. Visitors took approximately 150,000 copies of Prime Facts during the year, and further copies were downloaded from the museum website.
In September 2009, the museum and the National Archives of Australia (NAA) presented a joint event to celebrate the reopening of the Australian Prime Ministers Centre (following its relocation to the House of Representatives wing of the building) and the upgrading of the NAA’s Australia’s Prime Ministers website (primeministers.naa.gov.au). The website upgrade was funded in part by the museum under a memorandum of understanding with the NAA. Senator Kate Lundy officiated at the event, which was attended by about 50 representatives from prime ministerial libraries and cultural institutions. The celebration included a performance of two musical pieces about former prime ministers by Mr John Shortis, a previous recipient of an Australian Prime Ministers Centre Fellowship, and his partner, Ms Moya Simpson.
More than 2,000 items were added to the Australian Prime Ministers Centre library catalogue. Data cleanup and quality control were undertaken in preparation for the contribution of details of the centre’s collections of published material to Libraries Australia, the National Library of Australia’s resource-sharing service that provides details of over 42 million items held in Australian academic, research, national, state, public and special libraries. This contribution, via the Trove interface on the National Library of Australia’s website, will come into effect from August 2010. It will provide online access to the Australian Prime Ministers Centre’s catalogue for the first time and will significantly increase awareness of and access to the collection.
Collaborative activities
The Australian Prime Ministers Centre continued to collaborate with research and collecting agencies that hold significant collections of source material on Australia’s prime ministers. Activities included:
- hosting a second annual Round Table of Prime Ministerial Research and Collecting Agencies meeting in September 2009 to foster cooperation among relevant agencies, and circulating the first biannual newsletter to its members in March 2010
- adding to the Round Table membership the organisations responsible for former prime ministers’ homes that have a public role, such as the Chifley Home and the Lyons residence, Home Hill
- collaborating with the Chifley Home through
- financial support to develop an oral history sound station for presenting recorded interviews to visitors
- developmental support in the form of a mentorship arrangement for its coordinator under the auspices of Museums & Galleries NSW
- supporting the NAA to add details to its online RecordSearch database of ministerial correspondence by the Hon John Howard and Cabinet papers collected by the Hon Paul Keating during their terms as prime minister
- continuing to cooperate with the National Library of Australia under a memorandum of understanding to record oral histories of former Australian parliamentarians
- collaborating with the National Centre of Biography, Australian National University (ANU) College of Arts and Social Sciences, to present the well-attended ‘Symposium on Gender, Politics and Biography’ at Old Parliament House on 9 November 2009.
Research program
The research and scholarship program managed by the Australian Prime Ministers Centre, now in its third year, continued to foster projects that expand knowledge about the lives, achievements and administrations of Australia’s prime ministers.
The program has two categories: Fellowships, which supports research by established scholars and cultural practitioners; and Summer Scholarships, which encourages students to develop an interest in prime ministerial studies at the beginning of their careers.
Fellowship applications for 2009–10 closed at the end of July 2009, and summer scholarship applications closed in October 2009. Applications were again assessed by an independent selection panel of representatives of academic institutions, cultural institutions and the museum.
Seven fellows and three summer scholars were supported in 2009–10 (compared to eight and one, respectively, in 2008–09). Details of the recipients and their research are listed in Appendix D (page 141). A case study on the project of one of this year’s fellows, Dr Anna Cole, is on page 49.
The Australian Prime Ministers Centre also continued to provide offices, meeting rooms and access to the collection for fellows and summer scholars. Fellows, in particular, made increasing use of the collection.
Web-based education strategy
The consolidation of the new onsite Museum of Australian Democracy education programs that had been introduced late in the previous year was a key priority in 2009–10. Together with the opportunity to utilise RFID (radio frequency identification) technology as a tool and an integral component of two of the most popular school programs, this meant that the focus was very much on onsite program development, including staff training. As a result, the development of a strategy for the introduction of web-based schools and non-schools learning programs, work on which began in 2009–10, was unavoidably delayed.
The RFID project presents a unique opportunity to link an onsite experience to an online one. It will form a key part of the web-based education strategy, which will be finalised by November 2010, and the ongoing evaluation that will inform it.