Any public contribution to a Treasury policy or legislative project is called a submission.
Submissions are actively sought by Treasury from a broad cross section of the community, as well as those with a special interest in particular policies or legislation.
Submissions are usually written, but there is no set format and they need not be formal documents. Where possible, submissions in electronic format are preferred. Treasury’s publication of a submission is not an indication of Treasury’s endorsement of any views or comments contained in that submission.
Treasury consultations can be submitted until midnight AEST on the closing day.
Writing a submission
The best submissions:
- are relevant and highlight your own perspective
- are concise, generally no longer than four to five pages
- begin with a short introduction about yourself or the organisation you represent
- emphasise the key points so that they are clear
- outline not only what the issues are but how problems can be addressed, as the Treasury looks to submissions for ideas to make recommendations
- only include documents that directly relate to your key points
- only include information you would be happy to see published on the internet.
What happens to my submission?
Your submission will be read by Treasury staff working on the project to which you are contributing. These staff will decide whether to accept your submission and whether to publish it.
In the interests of informed public debate, Treasury is committed to transparency in its processes and open access to information. For this reason, Treasury aims to publish submissions on its website where it is appropriate to do so. However, Treasury reserves the right to edit (for example, remove defamatory material or, where appropriate, de-identify personal or sensitive information), publish or not publish submissions on its website at its own discretion.
Your submission is not automatically accepted and published. Treasury may take several weeks to consider and process your submission.
If accepted, most submissions are published on Treasury’s website with the name of the submitter. If your submission is published, the information in it, including your name can be searched for on the internet.
You cannot withdraw or alter your submission once the committee has published it.
You can ask Treasury to keep your submission private
If you want your submission to be kept confidential (and your name not to be published on the internet), you should:
- include the word confidential clearly on the front of your submission and provide a reason for your request.
- make sure that your name and contact details are on a separate page and not in the main part of your submission.
Confidential information may be placed in an attachment to the main part of your submission, with a request for Treasury to keep the attachment confidential.
Confidential submissions are only read by members of the relevant project team, and are not made available on the Treasury website. De-identified summaries of these submissions will not be made public without the permission of the contributors. However, the substance of any submission might be communicated to the Minister, and in most circumstances Treasury has an obligation to provide the Minister with information about who provided the submission if it is requested.
Please also note that any submission provided to Treasury may be the subject of a request under the federal Freedom of Information Act 1982. Any request for access to or a copy of a confidential submission is determined in accordance with that Act, which has provisions designed to protect sensitive information given in confidence. The Act includes various exemptions for documents such as: documents provided in confidence (e.g. confidential submissions) and personal information. Any FOI application that relates to personal information or confidential submissions will be processed in accordance with these exemptions.
Copyright
Ownership of all submissions received by Treasury remains vested with the respective author(s) of the submission.
However, in making a submission to Treasury you grant a permanent, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to allow the Department to use, reproduce, publish, adapt, perform or communicate to the public your submission on the department website, including converting your submission into a different format to that submitted for the purposes of meeting relevant accessibility requirements.
To the extent that your submission contains material that is owned by a third party, you warrant that you have obtained all necessary licences and consents required for the use of those materials (including for Treasury to use, reproduce, publish, perform or communicate to the public), and have made arrangements for the payment of any royalties or other fees payable in respect of the use of such material.