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Victorian Government style guide

Understand how the Victorian Government follows the Australian Government Style Manual (AGSM) and find guidance on common style queries.

On this page

Sources and references

The Victorian Government uses:

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

Numerals in text

Traditionally small numerals ranging from one to nine were spelled out in Victorian Government publications.

Recent research and advice from accessibility and content experts advises that numerals for ‘2’ and above are easier to read and scan than words. This change has been reflected in the Australian Government Style Manual, along with the advice to continue to write the numbers ‘zero’ and ‘one’ in words.

However, numbers as words remains a convention that people expect in some types of Victorian Government content and can be used if the author believes it conveys the message best for the audience.

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 Victoriaformer premier of Victoriaformer state minister the Premier, Premier-electformer premierformer minister
Minister for the Arts the ministerministerial officeminister’s office
the Minister for Sport and the Minister for Ports the ministers
DPC SecretaryOffice of the Secretary the Secretarythe office
State of Victoria (as a legal entity) the state
State Government of VictoriaVictorian 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 AGSMCapitalisation 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 contextUse the Federal Government or the Commonwealth Government to avoid confusion with the Victorian Government
Victorian CabinetState Cabinet the Cabinet
2022/23 Victorian BudgetThe Budget prefers this format. It is an exception to AGSM guidance, which specifies that ranges of numbers use an en dash. the State Budgetthe Budgetsuccessive state budgetsbudget provisionsbudgetary process
Department of Premier and Cabinet Annual Report 2022–23 the annual reportthe report
Victorian ParliamentParliamentary Library, Parliament House the Parliamentparliamentary procedures
Victorian Ombudsman the Ombudsman
ANZACChange in capitalisation per ANZAC Day (Amendment) Act 2003NOT Anzac (when used in context of Victorian ANZAC events, memorials and mentions).

Capitalisation of other terms commonly used in government

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

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.

Former Victorian department names that occasionally appear:

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.

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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 andPDFs 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 guidelinesfor logos, colours, fonts and co-branding.

Accessibility

Content in languages other than English

Refer to:

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:

Working in government

Updated 26 August 2025

About the VIC Government

Grants and programs

Jobs and careers

Arts, culture and heritage

Business and the workplace

Communities

Education and training

Environment, water and energy

Finance and economy

Health and social support

Housing and property

Law and justice

Safety and emergencies

Science and technology

Sport and recreation

Traffic and transport

Working in the Victorian Government