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Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Agency overview
Formed	1911
Jurisdiction	Australian Government
Employees	526
Annual Budget	AU$140.7 million (2007/08)
Minister Responsible	Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister
Agency Executive	Peter Shergold, Secretary
Website
dpmc.gov.au

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) is an Australian Government department. The Department was first established in 1911 (it was then known as the Prime Minister's Department; the later title was created in 1968). Its role is to ensure that policy proposals put to the Prime Minister and to Cabinet are developed in a coherent, informed and coordinated fashion, to co-ordinate the implementation of key government programmes, to support official visits, ceremonies and state occasions and, to manage the operations of the official residences. The responsibilities of the Department are considerably wider than in most other Westminster systems, although the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in New Zealand has similar responsibilities.

The Department is organised into a Cabinet Division, an Economic Division, an Industry, Infrastructure and Environment Division, an International Division, a National Security Division, a Social Policy Division and a People, Resources and Communications Division and numerous Task Forces to deal with particular problems. The Secretary of the Department, currently Dr Peter Shergold, is the equivalent of the Cabinet Secretary in Britain or the Clerk of the Privy Council in Canada.

On August 24, 2007 reports in the Australian print and electronic media were made of anonymous edits to Wikipedia by staff in this Department in order to remove potentially damaging details from articles related to the Government. Information found using the software tool WikiScanner showed 126 anonymous edits from the Department to sometimes controversial articles such as the Children Overboard Affair, Mandatory detention in Australia, and to articles on government ministers, including removing a reference to the nickname "Captain Smirk" for Treasurer Peter Costello^[1][2]. The Department responded by saying that Prime Minister John Howard did not direct his staff to modify the articles^[3], and later that day the head of the Department, Dr Peter Shergold, said that the changes were not made by anyone in his department or the Prime Minister's office, but by another user with the same Internet Service Provider (ISP)^[4]. The same reports also identified the Department of Defence as having made more than 5,000 anonymous edits on a range of topics, prompting Defence to block staff from editing Wikipedia^[5].

• Prime Minister of Australia
• List of Australian Commonwealth Government entities

• Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Website

Departments of the Australian Government

Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry | Attorney-General's | Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy | Climate Change | Defence | Education, Employment and Workplace Relations | Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts | Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs | Finance and Deregulation | Foreign Affairs and Trade | Health and Ageing | Human Services | Immigration and Citizenship | Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government | Innovation, Industry, Science and Research | Prime Minister and Cabinet | Resources, Energy and Tourism | Treasury | Veterans' Affairs

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