Talk:List of Australian Government entities

Untitled
I have created this list, but I am having trouble deciding how deep to list sub-departmental entities. All the information is available from the Government directory.

I am also considering changing the name of this article to List of Australian Commonwealth Government entities. Martyman 08:52, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Rewrite
I am going to rewrite this list, starting from a top level of Ministerial Portfolios. Martyman 03:30, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I have rewritten this by portfolio as this is how the Australian Government Directory is ordered. I have also added many of the missing governmental bodies. There may be some I have missed and many may be non-notable and could be removed. Martyman 23:12, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


 * This is great. However, I'm wondering whether this articles' function might better be served by an over-arching category with sub-categories and separate articles?--Cyberjunkie | Talk 13:40, 12 October 2005 (UTC)


 * True, that would be a much more elegant way of doing this. Unfortunatly it wouldn't properly replace this unless someone actually created a stub for all of the red links on this page, and that isn't very practical as many of these probably don't really deserve their own article. --Martyman- (talk) 21:01, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

It appears as though this page needs complete revision. For example, Mark Vaile is now the Minister for Transport and Regional Services, not Trade. There must be many other inaccuracies due to ministerial reshuffles. Talk 00:48, 01 May 2007(UTC)

Etc
What's the Industrial Relations one?Chorocobo 08:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Out of date
This page is still basically about the situation under Howard. Isn't it time to bring this up to date? m.e. (talk) 04:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Title
There have probably been thousands of different government entities since 1901. This list is supposedly only about currently existing entities. Either the title should be changed, or it should list all of them. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:16, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
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Recent issues
I haven't looked at this list in a few years, and when it popped up in my watchlist today I noticed that it'd really devolved into a bit of a mess in a couple of areas.

Firstly, the whole "Department summary" section seems entirely misplaced and blows out the length of an already long article. This is not the place for changes in departmental structure over time, because the result is far, far too long for an already-long article, even with the WP:RECENTISM situation of only going back to 2013. That's content we already cover in the individual department articles and often in the individual ministry articles if they're done properly, and the lists in this article could be straight-up ported to those articles pretty easily if it's not already there.

Secondly, this list was always a list of government departments and agencies. In most areas, it still is, but there's some areas (Education, Employment, PMC, etc) where it's been reduced to a random list of policy areas in that portfolio that's fundamentally useless for our purposes. We've got no interest in precisely how a department organises its internal bureaucracy, but we do in making sure readers can find our content on government departments and agencies. Whoever removed all the redlinks also did it no favours, because the actual agencies were overwhelmingly notable and a bunch have since gotten articles but aren't linked, and now it doesn't highlight the agencies that still need them. It really needs a rework to be pulled back to what it was meant to be (which was genuinely useful). Pinging as a recent involved editor. The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 04:29, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that everything after Department Summary section is a complete mess and I have no idea how to fix that so I have no comments about those. As for the Department summary section which I mainly edit on, I think it is a good summary (and should be expanded to include pre-2013 changes) but I do not mind if this section as a whole should be placed somewhere else more appropriate.  Marc nut 1996  (talk) 05:28, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not disputing that it's a good summary, it's just that if it covered all ministries it'd be half a mile long in this tangentially related article that was also very long. It'd be better to copy it over into the individual ministry articles (I'd expect that the specific content already would be in the individual departmental articles). I think the actual list is relatively easy to fix - just go back to the original source (which was the Administrative Arrangements Order) and just update it, cutting out all the random dreck along the way. I'm happy to do it if there's agreement on that (just because it would take a while to fix, so I don't want to do it if it's at all controversial). The Drover&#39;s Wife (talk) 06:16, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I've started a draft of a potential rewrite removing all of the outdated information from the Departmental Summary section and updating each section after. I've limited sub-entries for departments to those which have their own Wikipedia pages. Skymann102 (talk) 05:58, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Potential Resources
Hi, just wanted to pass on two resources that would probably help a great deal in re-doing this page:


 * https://www.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/administrative-arrangements-order-23-June-2022.pdf
 * https://www.directory.gov.au/portfolios

They are themselves being progressively updated since the election but most of the info needed to clean up the page will be accessible via those links. Proutk (talk) 06:11, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

An extra list entry
I have no idea where it "belongs" in this list, but an article I recently wrote Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency belongs here. When this page gets cleaned up I ask that it be added to the list (somewhere). Thanks Darcyisverycute (talk) 13:29, 31 July 2022 (UTC)


 * AHPRA is a body created under a uniform law of the States and Territories. It is not a federal government agency and might not belong in this list unless a new section is created for such bodies. Skymann102 (talk) 05:56, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
 * You're not wrong. To be honest, it looks like the page is trying to be two different, conflicting things:
 * (1) a list of "government entities" (the current page title). I would think AHPRA qualifies for this list as it is a statutory authority under the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS).
 * (2) A list of "government departments" grouped by "portfolio", as according to the list on the most recent "administrative arrangements order" or AAO (https://www.pmc.gov.au/publications/administrative-arrangements-order-5-december-2019). Importantly, this specific list does not include the NRAS (I don't know why it doesn't).
 * Consider Australia post. It's described as a "government business enterprise" on its page. Is that a government entity? I'd say so, but I suppose there's some distinction between government entity and government contractor which blurs the line. Regardless, just because it's in the AAO, ie. that it's in this particular organizational political model, that automatically makes it a political entity according to the current inclusion criteria for this article.
 * Comparing the article to List of federal agencies in the United States, doesn't the Australian government just seem a bit, less organized if we take the AAO as a ground truth? That's not really Wikipedia's fault, but it would be a little nicer if there was a way to organise legislative bodies not listed in the AAO without breaking some strict ordering.
 * So there's some options I suppose.
 * 1: Rename the page to what it's currently about, and possibly draft a new page for a more complete list of Australian government entities, or maybe specifically a new list article covering statutory authorities that aren't listed in the AAO.
 * 2: Add more to this list, under new, different sections like in the US article version, under a subheading like "Independent agencies and government-owned corporations", indicating the AHPRA is empowered through the NRAS.
 * 3: Leave it as is, and maybe let AHPRA sit in the less structurally organized, less prescriptive Category:Commonwealth Government agencies of Australia.
 * Personally think option 2 makes the most sense since it's consistent with the US article, and makes the information more easily accessible which I would think is the goal of a list like this. Darcyisverycute (talk) 15:07, 26 February 2023 (UTC)