ACT Government's Duplicate Image Replacement Program: What Happened This Week

The ACT Government's whole-of-government digital assets program took a concrete step forward this week, with the Chief Digital Officer's unit issuing updated guidance to agencies requiring the removal and replacement of duplicate imagery across public-facing websites and internal content management systems by July 25. The directive, circulated to communications and IT teams across the service on July 1, covers everything from Canberra.gov.au landing pages to the digital portals used by Transport Canberra and the ACT Health Directorate.

The timing is not accidental. The ACT Legislative Assembly is currently in recess, and agency heads have used the quieter parliamentary window to push through administrative housekeeping that often stalls during sitting periods. Digital governance staff described the duplicate image problem as a slow-moving but genuine drain on platform performance — stockpiled photography from events and infrastructure projects, some of it dating to 2019, has been sitting in content libraries in multiple copies, slowing page-load times and creating version-control headaches for web editors.

Where the Problem Has Been Worst

Two agencies emerged as priority targets in the guidance: the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate, which maintains a large library of aerial and landscape photographs tied to development applications across Gungahlin and Belconnen, and Transport Canberra, whose light rail and bus network pages carry overlapping image sets from successive infrastructure announcements. The Gungahlin Town Centre development corridor alone had generated more than 400 indexed image files across three separate subdirectories, according to an internal audit completed in May.

The Australian National University's digital communications team confirmed separately that it had completed its own duplicate image audit across ANU.edu.au in June, cutting hosted image assets by roughly 30 percent after a six-week review. ANU is not subject to the ACT Government directive but operates in close coordination with Territory digital standards given its role as a major landlord and service provider within the inner north. The University of Canberra, based in Bruce, has been running a similar internal review since February as part of a broader website refresh expected to go live in September.

For Canberra's sizeable public service workforce, the practical effect is visible. Employees at the Phillip offices of the ACT Revenue Office and at Callam Offices in Woden have noticed updated intranet pages in recent days, with several department home screens swapping out what staff had long noticed as obviously repeated stock photography — the same aerial shot of Lake Burley Griffin had appeared on at least four separate agency pages simultaneously.

What the Audit Found and What Comes Next

The May internal audit, which covered 14 directorates, found that approximately 22 percent of images stored in the whole-of-government content management system were exact or near-exact duplicates. A further 11 percent were identified as outdated — showing infrastructure, buildings or public spaces that no longer exist or have been significantly altered, including pre-renovation images of the Civic bus interchange and the old Northbourne Avenue median before light rail construction began.

Agencies have been told to use the government's licensed image library, which was expanded in March 2026 under a new contract with a commercial photography provider, to source replacement material. The contract, which runs to June 2028, covers royalty-free use of locally shot Canberra imagery. Agencies cannot simply delete duplicate files without logging replacements in the central asset register — a step designed to prevent broken image links cascading through linked documents and PDF publications.

For public servants managing agency websites, the practical advice circulating within the service this week is straightforward: run the duplicate-detection tool already embedded in GovCMS, the platform used by most ACT Government sites, flag any image appearing in more than two locations, and submit replacement requests to the Digital Strategy and Services branch before the July 25 deadline. Agencies that miss the cut-off will face a mandatory review in the October portfolio budget statements process. Communications managers in Barton and Civic have been told not to wait for IT teams to lead the process — this one sits firmly with content owners.