Abstract
The National Museum of Australia opened its doors to the public on 11 March 2001. Located in Canberra, the federal capital, the Museum was the centre-piece of celebrations marking the centenary of Australia’s federation. As such, the Museum’s director, Dawn Casey, described the AU $155 million, state-of-the-art institution as ‘a gift to the nation’. But for some, this was not the sort of present that Australia wanted. In officially opening the Museum, the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, seemed somewhat under-whelmed, struggling to find anything positive to say about the new edifice. In his speech, the Prime Minister parsimoniously claimed that ‘Whatever may be said and whatever has already been said about the Museum … [it] will change in a very profound way the enjoyment of life for people who live in the national capital’ (Howard, 2001).
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© 2009 Ben Wellings
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Wellings, B. (2009). Nation, History, Museum: The Politics of the Past at the National Museum of Australia. In: Carvalho, S., Gemenne, F. (eds) Nations and their Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245273_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245273_17
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