An independent resource tracking the spending, staffing and structure of Australian federal and state government agencies, drawn from official budget papers and Australian Public Service Commission data and presented in plain language. Free to access.
Budget Papers is an independent civic resource that tracks the spending, staffing and structure of Australian federal and state government agencies. It was built with AI assistance, so errors are possible; please report any to hello@budgetpapers.com. It is, and will remain, free to access.
The Budget Expenditure tab lets you browse Commonwealth portfolios and agencies: view departmental and administered spending, compare figures across years, and examine each entity’s budget and staffing in detail. You can also switch jurisdictions to view the Commonwealth alongside New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the other states and territories. The Organisational Chart tab maps the hierarchy of Commonwealth agencies within their portfolios, with workforce composition shown on each card. The Compare tab puts two to four agencies side by side.
Commonwealth figures cover four years, 2023–24 to 2026–27, sourced from Budget Paper No. 4. All eight states and territories are included for 2024–25 and 2025–26, taken directly from each jurisdiction’s own budget papers. All figures are in Australian dollars. The How Budgets Work page explains what the figures include and exclude, and the conventions behind them. The complete dataset, in raw and annotated form and as CSV, Excel or JSON, can be downloaded from the Data page.
Workforce figures cover three metrics for each Commonwealth agency: Average Staffing Level (ASL) from Budget Paper No. 4, classification breakdowns (APS 1–6, Executive Level, and Senior Executive Service) from Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) employment data, and contractor-to-APS conversion figures by portfolio. Non-APS bodies such as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Special Broadcasting Service, Reserve Bank of Australia, and Australia Post sit outside the Australian Public Service Commission dataset and link to their annual reports instead.
State entries use a single combined total per agency rather than the Commonwealth’s departmental/administered split, and cover a curated subset of each jurisdiction’s largest agencies. State and federal agencies can still be compared side by side in the Compare tab, although with less detail for state entries. The How Budgets Work page covers where the two datasets differ.