8.3 Format of minutes

8.3.1 Minute covers

Executive Council Minutes must be prepared on standard A4 size Minute folders in the format authorised by the Executive Council Secretariat. Minute folders of the prescribed standard are available from the Queensland Government Bookshop. All printing is to be in black (see also 8.7). A sample standard Minute format is at Appendix 19 (.doc, 199 KB).

8.3.2 Details included on each minute cover

Each Minute cover must include the following details:

• Department or agency name. This should be typed in capital letters. Please contact the Executive Council Secretariat if there is any confusion. (See also 6.12 jointly sponsored Minutes).
• Authorising Act of Parliament. This is the name of the Act or Acts which provide the relevant authority to the Governor in Council. It should be typed in italics and in "title case". Where two or more Acts provide authority for the Minute, they should be listed under each other in alphabetical order (NB: generally, there is no authorising Act for Project Commencement Approval Minutes).
  
  If the action to which a Minute is attempting to give effect is not specifically provided for in the relevant legislation certain provisions of the Acts Interpretation Act 1954 may be relied upon to provide a legislative basis for the action.
  
  In such cases, the Acts Interpretation Act 1954 should be cited as a head of power along with the other relevant legislation on the Minute cover.
• Title. This should be typed in capital letters, be as concise as possible and never exceed two lines. No attempt should be made to render the title as a sentence.
  
  The action itself should not be mentioned, e.g. 'Approval of' or 'Making of' should not appear in the heading.
  The title should however show the types of actions recommended by the Minute, with singular and plural forms giving some indication of number. Semicolons should be used to separate types of actions where there are more than two, the last type of action being preceded by 'and'. For example, the title of a Minute proposing the making of Orders in Council and a Regulation, and the termination of an agreement should have the title 'ORDERS; A REGULATION; AND TERMINATION OF AN AGREEMENT'. (Note that in the Executive Council context the 'in Council' after 'Order' is redundant.) Where only two types of action are proposed, the conjunction 'and' should be used without further punctuation, as in 'A REGULATION AND TERMINATION OF AN AGREEMENT'.
• Recommendation. The recommendation, or text of the Minute, commences with the words 'The Council recommends to His Excellency the Governor [or 'to His or Her Excellency the Acting Governor', or 'to the Deputy Governor' as appropriate] that'. The recommendation should be concise, be typed in single line spacing and end with the words '(MINUTE ENDS)' in brackets immediately following the last word of the recommendation - i.e. there are no spaces following the full stop. The recommendation comprises one paragraph, although it can contain several alphanumerically numbered sub-paragraphs describing discrete actions. The Minister must initial the Minute cover immediately after the words '(MINUTE ENDS)'.

The authorising Act of Parliament should not be repeated in the recommendation, although where the action affects another Act, this should be mentioned in full (for example, exemptions from the provisions of another Act). Where the subject of a Minute is a regulation, the title of the regulation when referenced in the recommendation, should be typed in italics.

Where several sub-paragraphs are to follow the introductory line, the line concludes with a dash immediately following the word 'that' (see Appendix 21 (.doc, 198 KB)). Colons are not to be used. The alphanumeric delineator is in lower case, enclosed in brackets and aligned with the left margin, but the text in sub-paragraphs is indented by about 1cm from the margin. Sub-paragraphs are separated by a semicolon and a line space. In most cases each sub-paragraph contains the appropriate recommended course of action as its final two words, for example: 'be made', 'be approved' or 'be refused'. ⁷ The penultimate sub-paragraph concludes '; and'.

7. The chief exception to this rule will be where one Act authorises an exemption from the provisions of another Act. In this case the final words will be '… be wholly exempt from the provisions of [name of Act]'.

Where several schedules, instruments, agreements or other papers are enclosed, they must be given a unique alphanumeric upper case identifier and referred to as such in the text of the recommendation. For example, if a Minute proposes the making of two Orders and the approval of details on a schedule, the enclosure mentioned first in the Minute (an Order in this example) should be marked 'A', the second (another Order) marked 'B' and the third (a schedule) marked 'C'. (Note: Certificates of Permission to Cremate should not be individually marked.) If there are more than twenty-six enclosures, the twenty-seventh should be marked 'AA', the twenty-eighth 'AB' and so on.

Examples of Minutes (including examples for the Deputy Governor and Acting Governor) containing several discrete actions in sub-paragraphs can be found at Appendices 20-31.