Australia.gov.au migrated to govCMS

Australian government homepage Australia.gov.au has become the first site to move onto the new govCMS platform.

The website hosts digital government services that are used by more than 2 million visitors per month.

The site has now gone live on the Acquia Cloud and is making use of the Drupal-based govCMS platform.

In a statement, Acquia said the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority will be one of the first external agencies to adapt the platform and plans to migrate to govCMS in early 2015.

The government plans to offer free training courses to introduce the new system on Friday in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne, as part of the Drupal Association's Drupal Global Training Days initiative.

Acquia is working with the govCMS team to create common themes and templates that can be used for a variety of government websites including homepages, blogs and policy microsites.

The govCMS project aims to develop a standardised procurement model for government website services. It uses the aGov Drupal distribution, which was developed specifically for Australian government organisations.

The Department of Finance launched a tender for the govCMS platform in May and selected Acquia as the govCMS service provider in September.

The department has set a target of migrating between 182 and 437 government websites to the new system within four years.

Image courtesy of Gabor Hojtsy under CC