What you need to know.

As an award recipient you have received an email/letter from the Official Secretary to the Governor-General and Secretary of the Order of Australia informing you that you are being recommended for an award within the Australian honours system. 
 
What now?

1. Complete both the Acceptance and Privacy/Release of Information Forms and return to honours@gg.gov.au by the date indicated.
2. Please carefully check the information as we want to ensure that personal information collected, used and stored is accurate, up to date and complete. It is important that all changes made can be clearly identified. The service includes section is a synopsis of the service that formed the basis on which your award has been proposed, and is not intended to be a full history of your service.  It is for this reason that there is no guarantee that any additional information you provide, other than corrections, will be included. 
3. Your agreement to release information is detailed on the Release of Information Form.  Should you wish for information not to be released we ask you to please advise us in writing.
4. Confidentiality - we ask that you maintain the strictest confidence of the proposed award until announced publicly on either Australia Day or The Queen’s Birthday.
5. Should the Governor-General approve your proposed award, the information you have agreed to provide will be released.
6. Approximately ten days prior to the announcement of the honours list information about award recipients and their service is released to the media. This material is under embargo and cannot be published until the date of the honours list announcement. Upon receipt of the honours material, the media may contact recipients who have provided telephone details about their impending award announcement. Should you wish, it is perfectly in order to speak with the media about the award at that time.

Please note: The information you provide is not intended for use for anything other than the stated purpose.  Government House cannot guarantee how the information may be used once released to media organisations.  We do request that the media not publish recipient’s phone details or use them for any other purpose.  You should be aware, however, that Government House cannot guarantee the restricted use once released to the media