Victorian Government style guide

Sources and references

The Victorian Government uses:

the Australian Government Style Manual (AGSM) for decisions about grammar, usage, structure and referencing
the Macquarie Dictionary for spelling

We also use these additional resources on specific topics.

Victorian government-specific guidance

Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners and Welcome to Country

Find out who and if you should do a Welcome to Country or Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners for your event.

Apolitical language

Victorian Government writing must be clearly distinguishable from party-political messages. It must not use party-political slogans, images or language.

Examples:

Use these terms	Don't use these terms
✓ Victorian Government ✓ state government	✗ Labor Government ✗ state Labor government ✗ Allan Government

Use these terms

Don't use these terms

✓ Victorian Government

✓ state government

✗ Labor Government

✗ state Labor government

✗ Allan Government

Victorian Government terms

Terms in the table below include some exceptions to guidance in the AGSM.

Use capitals for proper nouns, the start of sentences and official or abbreviated specific titles, but not for generic or plural references. Some exceptions apply.

Proper noun	Generic form
Victorian Government	the government
Department of Premier and Cabinet (applies to all 10 departments)	… the department (department initialisms may be used in limited circumstances)
Premier of Victoria former premier of Victoria former state minister	the Premier, Premier-elect former premier former minister
Minister for the Arts	the minister ministerial office minister's office
the Minister for Sport and the Minister for Ports	the ministers
DPC Secretary Office of the Secretary	the Secretary the office
State of Victoria (as a legal entity)	the state
State Government of Victoria Victorian Government (NOT the State Government, use the Victorian Government)	the government
the Commonwealth Government or the Federal Government (NOT the Australian Government) Note, Victorian guidance differs to guidance in the AGSM Capitalisation is in line with the AGSM. Initial capital for Commonwealth, no capitalisation required for federal except at the start of a sentence.	no generic form in the Victorian context Use the Federal Government or the Commonwealth Government to avoid confusion with the Victorian Government
Victorian Cabinet State Cabinet	the Cabinet
2022/23 Victorian Budget The Budget prefers this format. It is an exception to AGSM guidance, which specifies that ranges of numbers use an en dash.	the State Budget the Budget successive state budgets budget provisions budgetary process
Department of Premier and Cabinet Annual Report 2022–23	the annual report the report
Victorian Parliament Parliamentary Library, Parliament House	the Parliament parliamentary procedures
Victorian Ombudsman	the Ombudsman
ANZAC Change in capitalisation per ANZAC Day (Amendment) Act 2003 NOT Anzac (when used in context of Victorian ANZAC events, memorials and mentions).

Capitalisation of other terms commonly used in government

Act(s)
the Bar
the Bench
Bill(s)
Ordinance(s)
Regulation(s)
Traditional Owner

Capitalising names of policies and programs

Capitalise the titles of government policies or programs.

‘Policy’ or ‘program’ should only be capitalised where they are part of the official program or policy title.

Capitalisation for education

Year (e.g. Year 9, Years P to 12, Prep)

VCE subjects (e.g. Theatre Studies)

Departments

Departmental initialisms are widely used within government but not generally understood outside of government. Only use an initialism if the term is repeated a lot in a page or document.

DE: Department of Education
DEECA: Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action
DFFH: Department of Families, Fairness and Housing
DGS: Department of Government Services
DH: Department of Health
DJCS: Department of Justice and Community Safety Victoria
DJSIR: Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions
DPC: Department of Premier and Cabinet
DTF: Department of Treasury and Finance
DTP: Department of Transport and Planning

Former Victorian department names that occasionally appear:

DET (training moved to DJSIR as of 1 January 2023)
DHHS (split into DH and DFFH as of 1 February 2021)
DEDJTR (split into DJPR and DoT as of 1 January 2019)
DELWP (mostly formed into DEECA as of 1 January 2023)
DJPR (mostly formed into DJSIR as of 1 January 2023)
DoT (now DTP with Planning moved from DELWP as of 1 January 2023)

Forms of address

How to address members of the Parliament of Victoria

How to address government officials

Victorian Government ministers' naming preferences

Refer to the list of current ministers on the Parliament of Victoria website to check ministers' naming preferences.

Ministers may choose to use the title ‘The Honourable’ (abbreviated to 'the Hon'). This title is granted for life, so former ministers may also use the title. The title is optional; before use, check if a member is using the title on the Parliament of Victoria website.

The President of the Senate or Legislative Council and the Speaker may use the title ‘The Honourable’ while in office.

Victorian regions and place names

VICNAMES is Victoria’s official place names database.

You can use VICNAMES to check the correct spelling of places, roads and historical information about geographic places in Victoria.

The database has approximately 200,000 road names and 45,000 place names. This includes geographic features such as mountains, rivers, bounded localities such as suburbs and towns and physical infrastructure such as roads, reserves and schools.

VICNAMES is used to ensure that names are not duplicated, provide details on the location and extent on geographic features, localities and roads and to record or find historical information on place names.

A
abbreviations - see also Shortened words and phrases
Aboriginal peoples - see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and
accessibility - see Make content accessible and also the Online Accessibility Toolkit
acronyms
adjectives
adverbs
ampersand - don't use ampersand in sentences; see Organisation names and Author-date referencing
apostrophes
articles (the, a, an) - see Determiners
B
bibliography - see Referencing and attribution
brackets
branding - see Brand Victoria guidelines and Apply Brand Victoria
brand names - see Commercial terms
C
capitalisation
clauses
climate - follow the rules of capitalisation for most natural phenomena
colons
commas
conjunctions
contractions
currency
D
dashes - avoid using in a span (e.g. It will take 2 to 3 hours.)
dates
decimals
determiners
disability - see People with disability
E
e.g., i.e. and etc. - see Latin shortened forms
ellipses
en dash, em dash - see dashes
endnotes - see Referencing and attribution
exclamation marks
F
First Nations - see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
footnotes - see Referencing and attribution
forward slash
fractions
full stops
G
government terms
H
hyperlinks
hyphens
I
images
inclusive writing - see Accessible and inclusive content
indigenous - see Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
initialisms
italics - limit the use of italics
L
LGBTI+ - see Gender and sexual diversity and our LGBTIQ+ Inclusive Language Guide
links
M
measurements, units of measurement - see Numbers and measurements
N
names - see Titles, honours and forms of address
nationalities
nouns
numbers, numerals - see Numbers and measurements; Use numerals (NOT words) for numbers in text (most of the time) because it's easier to read on a screen. But always use words for one and zero as the numerals 0 and 1 may be confused for letters.
O
ordinal numbers
organisation names
P
parentheses
PDFs - only use PDFs if your research shows there are specific needs for this format; see also Rules on publishing documents and PDFs in HTML first
percentages
phone numbers
place names (Australian)
prepositions
pronouns
punctuation
Q
question marks
quotation marks - use single quotes
R
References - See Referencing and attribution
royalty (referring to) - - see Titles, honours and forms of address and How to address royalty and officials
S
semicolons
shortened words and phrases
slashes
spelling - use Macquarie dictionary and see Common misspellings and word confusion
T
tables
telephone numbers
times
titles - see Titles, honours and forms of address and How to address royalty and officials
U
underline - only hyperlinks should be underlined; don't underline headings or any other text
V
verbs
Check any spelling you are unsure of with the Macquarie Dictionary.
See the Style Manual on Common misspellings and word confusion
Here are the correct spellings for some commonly misspelled words/terms:
adviser
behaviour
centre
child care
decision-making (n & adj)
focused (one s)
inquiries
modelling (double l)
start-up
statewide (adj)
subcommittee
subsite
the state (no capital S)
time frame (2 words)
Victorian public sector
wi-fi
whole-of-government (adj)

Additional Victorian Government resources

Branding

All government departments, agencies and entities must comply with the Brand Victoria guidelines for logos, colours, fonts and co-branding.

Accessibility

See our guide on making content accessible. For topics not covered by this guide, refer directly to the WCAG.
See Accessible and inclusive content on the Australian Government Style Manual.
The South Australian government's Online accessibility toolkit has been endorsed for use by all state governments.

Content in languages other than English

Refer to the Victorian Government digital guide on multilingual content for advice on developing and publishing multilingual content.

Inclusive language

See our LGBTIQ+ Inclusive Language Guide to understand how to use language respectfully and inclusively.

The Australian Government Style Manual has a section on Inclusive language that covers:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
Age diversity
Cultural and linguistic diversity
Gender and sexual diversity
People with disability

Working in government

Updated 24 September 2024