Capturing the Australian democracy story

We’re calling on all Australians to help us build the next chapter of Australia’s political history by collecting ephemera from the 2025 federal election.

Government and politics

Various ephemera relating to Australian federal election campaigns spread over a black background

Ephemera relating to the Australian federal election campaigns

Every three years, in the lead up to a federal election, Australians are bombarded with political party flyers, how-to-vote cards, banners, posters, badges, stickers, and other printed material.

This material provides a perspective into Australia’s social life and political landscape—the rise and fall of policies, issues, parties and careers. It offers historians and researchers of the future fascinating insights into the history of politics in Australia.

The National Library is keen to ensure a permanent documentary record of Australia’s political history is publicly available. We’ve been collecting federal election ephemera comprehensively and impartially since 1983. Thanks to the Australian public, we have the largest collection of political memorabilia in Australia, covering every Australian federal election since Federation in 1901. We are asking you, our citizen collectors, to help us again to collect more political ephemera to continue building on this exceptional resource.

What we are looking for

Our aim is to collect items from every federal electorate as well as from every candidate, party and lobby group during the 2025 federal election campaign.

Printed campaign material including letters, ‘how to vote’ cards, posters, pamphlets, badges, stickers, T-shirts, hats and any other printed material to promote a party or candidate, or to lobby an election issue.
We are particularly interested in material from marginal electorates, independents, rural and regional communities, material from culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and First Nations communities and candidates.
Material that records current issues of the day, such as the cost of living and housing security, education, the environment, climate change and more.

Folders containing ephemera from the 1969 Australian Federal election with labels on the spines for the corresponding political party

Election ephemera collected during the 1969 Australian federal election

How you can support this collecting campaign

If you, your colleagues, friends and relatives have access to this material, we encourage you to send it to us to add to the national collection. You can send smaller items (A4 size or smaller) for free using our reply-paid address. Our address is:

Federal Election Campaign Ephemera

Curatorial & Collection Research

National Library of Australia

Reply Paid 83399

CANBERRA ACT 2600

If you are in Canberra, you can also deposit items into one of the clearly labelled boxes in the Library’s Main Reading Room.

Condition of material and what we don’t collect

We ask that you are mindful of the condition of the material you will be depositing. If you have any preservation concerns (eg mould, dirt, insects) or where the object is torn or in poor condition, please email us to discuss, before sending material in.

We don't collect damaged material, photocopies, photographs, or copies of items we already have.

If you're unsure of the condition of your items, please email select@nla.gov.au and we'll let you know if we can accept it.

What happens to the items you send to us

When the election is over, printed material is sorted and stored in preservation quality housing and added to our catalogue. Take a look at the Federal election campaign ephemera (1901 – 2022) to explore some of the weird and wonderful items we have collected from past campaigns.

Please note that the Library may decline material that does not fit with our Collection Development Policy and may dispose of duplicate material in line with the Library’s Deaccessioning and Disposal Policy. Any incidental personal information received through the donation of material, such as a donor’s contact details, we will use to manage the material, and to perform our functions under the National Library Act 1960 (Cth) and the National Library Regulations 2018 (Cth).

Unfortunately, due to the amount of material we receive, we will not acknowledge receipt of every item, unless specifically requested.

Collecting digital material

Behind the scenes we will collect online information relating to the election. Online election material is collected by the National Library of Australia and archive partner agencies and delivered through the Australian Web Archive.

For the 2022 election, we collected over 1000 websites including political parties, candidates and lobby sites, as well as media and social media, such as X (previously Twitter), blogs and Reddit.