References to the Australian Government

Alternate (alt) Text for Use with the Design

Alternate text is an accessibility feature of HTML used to supply contextual information as an alternative to images.  The Alt text for the Design (when used only as an image) should read as follows:

For the department/agency Design:

The Australian Government Department of (full department/agency name).

For an Australian Government initiative program/product name:

(Program name) followed by 'An Australian Government Initiative'.

For the Australian Government Design:

The Australian Government.

Note: Where the Design is used as a navigational element (eg. functioning as a link to the agency's 'home' page) the alt text should describe the destination of the link.

Content

Reference to 'Australian Government'

Reference should now be made to ‘Australian Government’ where reference would previously have been made to the ‘Commonwealth Government’ or the ‘Federal Government’.

In the case of differentiating the three levels of government you may refer to either ‘the Commonwealth, and State and Territory Governments’ or ‘Australian, State and Territory Governments’.

Departmental names

When making reference to itself in the text of a document, if previous reference would have been to 'the Commonwealth Department of XYZ', it should now be 'the Australian Government Department of XYZ'.

Use of the term 'Commonwealth'

The 'Commonwealth of Australia' is the legal entity established by the Constitution. It is sometimes referred to simply as 'the Commonwealth'. Where the term 'Commonwealth Government' is used, it will normally be appropriate to replace that term with 'Australian Government'. However, in implementing the new branding requirements, care will need to be taken not to replace references to the 'Commonwealth of Australia' or 'the Commonwealth', where that term is used to describe the entity established by the Constitution or in a geographic sense, with references to the Australian Government.

Content published prior to June 2003 should only be amended to reflect this guidance if it describes the agencies current functions and/or responsibilities, current programs and policies.

Do not change previous years' Annual reports, media releases or publications that have been tabled in Parliament, previous policy or program documents, previous years' financial statements, documents describing agencies legal entity or legislation, or anything that alters the official record.