General Information

Gazette notices contain a range of information about legislation, including proclamations and notices of Commonwealth government departments and Courts, and other notices. Notices for publication are lodged for publication by government departments and agencies, as well as by private individuals, when required under Australian Government legislation.

The Office of Parliamentary Counsel has been publishing the Commonwealth Government Notices Gazette since 1 October 2012. Gazette notices published from this date onwards are available as individual notices on the Federal Register of Legislation and can be viewed by browsing to Gazettes - All - Sort by Printed/Publication Date. Notices are published soon after lodgement or as requested by the lodging agency, organisation or individual.

Free email notification of new Gazette notices is available through My Account.

Gazettes published prior to 1 January 2013

Prior to 1 January 2013 there were three types of Gazettes published, the Government Notices Gazette, the Special Gazette and the Periodic Gazette. The Government Notices Gazette was printed and published electronically once a week and contained a range of Australian Government general notices. Special Gazettes contained a single notice about a particular matter that required urgent publication, or publication on a specific day. Any Special Gazettes published during the week were republished in the following week's Government Notices Gazette. Periodic Gazettes were published irregularly as required and could contain multiple notices in relation to a specific subject area within the responsibility of the notifying government department. Print publication of the Government Notice, Special and Periodic Gazettes and classification of Gazettes into the three types ceased on 31 December 2012.

General and Special Gazette notices published between 1 October 2012 and 31 December 2012 are also available as individual notices and can be found by searching by Gazettes - All - Sort by Year/Number and choosing either General or Special in the 'Classified as' field. There were no Periodic Gazette notices published in this period.

Copies of most Government, Special and Periodic Gazettes published between 1 January 1901 and 31 December 2012 are available on the Federal Register of Legislation under Gazettes - January 1901 to December 2012.

Electronic and hard copies of Gazettes printed since 1901 are also available at the National Library of Australia in Canberra and should be available in hard copy at State Libraries throughout Australia.

If you experience any difficulties accessing the Gazettes or require other assistance please contact us using the Feedback Form.

Other Gazettes

A number of Gazettes are published by other Commonwealth departments and agencies. More information on these gazettes is available on the australia.gov.au website.

State and Territory Gazettes are published by the relevant State or Territory publisher. More information on material published by other jurisdictions is available on the other sources of Australian law page.

Lodging Notices

Gazette notices are published on the Federal Register of Legislation for use by the public, government agencies, and legal professionals. As this material is relied on for guidance and information that may have legal effect, it is essential the Gazette notices be legible and of high quality.

Before lodging a Gazette notice for publication, you should check the Gazette Notice Publication Requirements and note that publication fees may apply. Information regarding fees is available on the Federal Register of Legislation Lodgement site.

Please contact the Federal Register of Legislation as soon as possible for publication of urgent Gazette notices outside of normal business hours or on National or ACT public holidays.

Lodgement by a Member of the Public

Members of the public are able to email Gazette notices on the required Gazette template (DOC 0.1MB) (UPDATED 03 MAR 20) to the Help Desk for publication. For assistance with lodging notices or information on publication fees please contact the Help Desk.

Lodgement by a Government Agency

Government agencies lodge Gazette notices for publication using the Federal Register of Legislation Lodgement site, information on how to lodge is available from this site. If you are from a government agency and you do not have access please contact the Help Desk for assistance.

Unique names

The name of the Gazette notice must be unique and convenient (not too long), so that the Gazette can be identified with complete certainty from its name alone. For guidance on the naming of Gazette notices, the principles in Drafting Direction No. 1.1A Names of instruments and provision units of instruments can be applied. First Parliamentary Counsel may add a name to an unnamed document, including a Gazette notice, or amend the name of a document lodged for registration if the name of the document as lodged is not unique (see section 10 of the Legislation Rule 2016). A fee is charged for this service.

Alternative text

The Office of Parliamentary Counsel is required to comply with the mandated whole-of-government accessibility requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 and, under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, must ensure that people with disabilities have the same fundamental rights to access information and services as others in the community.

Alternative text, or alt text, is a short textual description of an image that can be read by a screen reader. It is not visible on the face of the relevant document (i.e. it sits in the image's properties).

Methods of adding alt text are different in different programs and even within versions of the same program. For the alt text of an image, object or picture in a Word document to display in a PDF version after conversion, appropriate information must be entered in the Alt Text field.

Gazette Notice Publication Requirements

To ensure Gazette notices meet the requirements of the WCAG (2.1), the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and any requirements under the Legislation Act 2003, it is important that the Gazette notices provided to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel meet a minimum standard for publication. To meet these minimum standards please ensure that:

1. the supplied Gazette template (DOC 0.1MB) (UPDATED 03 MAR 20) is used for the first page of each notice. No adjustments should be made to the margins, including the header and footer of the template, or the Gazette masthead; and


2. the notice is supplied only in any of the following word processing or data formats:
• Microsoft Word 97 or later version;
• rich text format;
• another format agreed, in writing, by the First Parliamentary Counsel; and
3. the notice includes a clearly identifiable name that is unique and convenient (not too long); and


4. every map, table or diagram in the notice is legible and any image (including crests, logos and electronic signatures) contains an accurate and descriptive alternative text (an accessibility feature used to supply contextual information for images) that can be read by screen readers; and


5. if an instrument is being published as a Gazette notice, the electronic form of the instrument in the notice is identical to the instrument as made, and includes:
• the name (as signed) of each maker of the instrument and each other person who signed the instrument; and
• any date given in the instrument as made as the date the instrument was made; and
• any other handwritten changes included in the instrument as made by a maker of the instrument; and
6. all tracked changes and editing comments are removed and the document is free of 'COPY' or 'DRAFT' stamps or other markings.

Your notice may not be published if it does not meet these requirements.

If you require any advice on preparing your notice for lodgement please contact the Help Desk.