The Department of the Treasury, also known as The Treasury, is the national treasury and financial department of the federal government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The treasury is responsible for executing economic and fiscal policy, market regulation and the delivery of the federal budget with the department overseeing 16 agencies. The Treasury is one of only two departments that have existed continuously since Federation in 1901, the other being the Department of the Attorney-General. The most senior public servant in the Treasury is the department secretary, currently Steven Kennedy who was appointed in September 2019. Ministerial responsibility for the department lies with the Treasurer, currently Jim Chalmers who took office in the Albanese government in May 2022.

History

The Australian Treasury was established in Melbourne in January 1901, after the federation of the six Australian colonies. In 1910, the federal government passed the Australian Notes Act 1910 which gave control over the issue of Australian bank notes to The Treasury and prohibited the circulation of state notes and withdrew their status as legal tender. The Treasury issued notes until 1924, when the responsibility was transferred to the Commonwealth Bank and later to Note Printing Australia, a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia. The department is focused on developing Australian taxation system, land and income tax and economic policies.

Structure

The Treasury is divided into five groups: fiscal, macroeconomic, revenue, Corporate and Foreign investment and markets, with support coming from the Corporate Services Division. These groups were established to meet four policy outcomes.

Agencies

As at October 2023, the Treasury oversaw 16 agencies.

Financial regulation

The department works with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, the Australian Securities & Investments Commission and the Reserve Bank of Australia via the Council of Financial Regulators Working Group to ensure that market operators have appropriate oversight and to facilitate crisis management if required.

List of secretaries

The secretary to the Treasury is the public service head of the department. Below is the list of secretaries.

Treasury’s independence

In 2008, Treasurer Wayne Swan called Secretary to the Treasury Ken Henry an "independent economic regulator," similar to the Governor of the Reserve Bank. When asked after the 2009 Budget about Treasury’s independence, Henry replied: "Strictly of course we're not. The Treasury Department is a department of state. It is part of the executive government. It works to the government of the day, whatever the political persuasion of the government of the day. And so in that sense of course the Treasury is not independent from government and it can never behave as if it is independent from government. But there's another sense in which it does have a degree of independence and that is that the Treasury conducts its analysis without government interference. It's up to the government of the day to decide whether to accept that analysis or whether to reject that analysis."

• Radio National, Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Forecasts

The department is legally required to provide a Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook containing updated reports on the economic and fiscal outlook shortly after the issuing of a writ for a general federal election.