Guidelines for Ministerial and Departmental Websites

Objective

The maintenance of websites by departments and agencies can raise particular issues related to the guarding of the impartial, apolitical, professional nature of the Australian Public Service (APS). It is important that departments consider carefully the content of their websites and those they maintain on behalf of their ministers.

The objective of these guidelines is to assist departments and agencies to ensure that websites reflect the APS values. They address, in particular, distinctions between three broad categories of websites:

  • departmental websites
  • ministerial websites maintained by departments (either directly or through a contractor)
  • personal websites that contain material on a minister's party political activities or views on issues not related to his or her ministerial role.

Because of the range of issues that can arise in the development of websites, these guidelines are not intended to be prescriptive and departments and agencies will need to exercise their own judgement in some circumstances.

Background

Australian Government departments and agencies are responsible for deciding what information to place on their websites. They are guided by the APS Values, which are set out in section 10 of the Public Service Act 1999. The Values require APS agencies to provide high quality, professional support to the government but at the same time to do so on a basis that is free from political bias and political influence.

Value (a) provides particular guidance in this regard:

The Australian Public Service is apolitical, performing its functions in an impartial and professional manner.

APS employees and Agency Heads also have defined responsibilities for the control and management of public property and the expenditure of public funds, as set out in the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997.

Staff with responsibility for departmental and ministerial website development and maintenance should undertake their duties with appropriate regard for the requirement to ensure that public resources are used efficiently, effectively and ethically.

Distinction between departmental and ministerial websites

The arrangements within departments and agencies for the maintenance of ministerial websites will vary. In a minority of cases a minister's office might itself place material on the minister's website with the department simply meeting the cost of the website. In many cases, the department will place material on the website at the request of the minister's office, not usually on a case-by-case basis but in line with agreements reached about categories of documents. In yet other cases, the department will pay a contractor to provide the service of loading material on the ministerial website. All three methods or variations of them are acceptable.

It is important, however, that there be a clear distinction between the departmental website and the ministerial one. The primary way of achieving that distinction is through the use of different livery and badging. The appearance of departmental media releases and speeches should be clearly distinct from that of ministerial media releases and speeches. Departmental logos should not appear on ministerial websites.

An additional method for distinguishing ministerial information is the use of different internet addresses. There are three ways this can be achieved:

  • a separate domain name using the minister's portfolio title eg www.pm.gov.au
    (NB: ministers' personal names cannot be used, according to the .gov.au domain name registration policy)
  • a sub-domain within the departmental domain name eg www.minister.industry.gov.au
  • a separate directory within the departmental website eg www.dest.gov.au/ministers/index.htm.

The use of distinct internet addresses or Universal Resource Locators (URLs) for ministerial sites is strongly encouraged as an additional mechanism for establishing a clear distinction between ministerial and departmental material. In nearly all cases, ministerial websites will be located in the .gov.au domain name space. There is a strong preference for departmentally sponsored sites to have a .gov.au domain name, but where a minister prefers an alternative domain name for a departmentally supported site, these guidelines still apply.

The requirement to distinguish between ministerial and departmental homepages does not mean that there can be no overlap in the material placed on the sites. The minister might choose to put material produced by the department on his or her site and there will be times when it will be appropriate for a ministerial media release to be placed on a departmental site. An example of this would be when a ministerial media release contains information such as a travel advisory warning that would normally be released by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and would best be grouped with other departmentally issued travel advisories. In most circumstances, however, one would expect that ministerial media releases and speeches would be on the ministerial site only.

Distinction between departmentally funded websites and personal or party political sites

An important element of maintaining the proper use of official resources and the apolitical nature of the public service is the avoidance of official involvement in the personal or party political activity of ministers. Departmentally funded websites should not therefore contain information about a minister's activities or views that have no relationship to official duties (eg favourite books or diaries of children's activities). Ministers can establish personal websites at their own expense for such purposes.

Departmentally funded websites should not contain material of a party political nature. Some judgement will of course be needed. Ministers in the explanation and defence of government policies will draw distinctions between Government and Opposition policies and might attack the policies of the Opposition. Such material may be placed on the ministerial website funded by the department. It is not in order, however, for material that relates solely to party political issues or that could be categorised as "how to vote" material to be placed on a departmentally funded site.

If employees are concerned about material placed or proposed to be placed on departmentally funded websites, they should raise those concerns promptly with their minister's office.

Linkages between departmental and ministerial websites

It is generally expected that there will be links between pages on a departmental website and a minister's media releases and speeches on ministerial websites. A link may be done in a number of ways:

  • a link to the front page of the minister's site
  • a link to the list of ministerial releases and speeches on the minister's site
  • a link direct from a departmental document to the relevant media release or speech on the minister's site.

These guidelines are not prescriptive as to which of these methods is used, provided that departmental and ministerial content remains distinct.

Departmentally supported sites may contain linkages to external, non-government internet resources. Departments and agencies need to exercise careful judgement when selecting external links to ensure that the APS values are not breached.

Government search engine

A comprehensive whole-of-government search service is available on www.australia.gov.au.

Ministerial websites managed by departments are hosted in the .gov.au domain and considered to be within the government online sphere. Material on these websites is available to the www.australia.gov.au search engine. In addition, all Senators and Members have personal homepages on the www.aph.gov.au website. These pages are also fully indexed by the www.australia.gov.au search engine.

Since Ministers' personal websites are not hosted in the .gov.au domain, they fall outside the government online sphere. The www.australia.gov.au search engine does not pick up material on these websites.

Caretaker Conventions

During the caretaker period preceding elections, departments and agencies should ensure that their websites and the management of these websites are consistent with the principles set out in the Guidance on Caretaker Conventions - (PDF 187kb).

Guidance on Caretaker Conventions - (PDF 187kb) includes guidance on:

  • ensuring that websites are not used to support any particular political party
  • existing materials that may be retained on websites and materials that may be added
  • links from websites
  • maintenance of ministerial websites during caretaker periods.

If further advice is required in relation to particular issues that arise during the caretaker period, departments and agencies should contact the Government Division, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet on (02) 6271 5399.

Further information

For more information about these guidelines contact:

Web Publishing
Tel: (02) 6215 1653
webpublishing@finance.gov.au