Red Books and Blue: Prepping for Australia's general election

As Australia faces a fairly quick turnaround of an upcoming Senate estimates, MYEFO and general election, we're offering a quick primer on the process the public service goes through in this period.

Bureaucracy has a thing for colour coding. Australia is no different, following again the partisan colours of the United Kingdom which—fun fact—is the reverse, so-to-speak, in the United States. Below the political parties for the federal layer of government, the Australian Public Service (APS) has its own rainbow that helps delineate purpose and stage of process.

For example, the Department of Finance's advice on expenditure put before Cabinet is known as the ‘greens’, printed, naturally, on green paper. The equivalent Department of the Treasury advice, on revenue, is known as the ‘pinks’. Once, Finance used to run ‘blues’ as well, which were for its advice on the Department of Defence's capital program.

In a similar vein before every federal election, each government department prepares an incoming government brief (IGB) for an incoming government—whether new or returned (re-elected). Because the outcome of an election cannot (and should not) be anticipated by the APS, two briefs are …