How to write a briefing note

A briefing note puts one issue in front of a decision-maker in a form they can take in within a few minutes and act on. In government relations, it is what a minister’s or MP’s office reads before it meets you, and the record of what you asked for once you have left. You can use the model note below as a template.

What is a briefing note?

• A briefing note is a concise summary of one issue, usually one or two pages of bullet points.
• It often includes a recommended action.
• It is written to inform decision-makers quickly: politicians, public servants, board members and executives.
• It is often sent ahead of a meeting, so the decision-maker arrives prepared.

For example, if a bank’s chief executive were meeting the Prime Minister about a new government infrastructure investment program, the bank would send a briefing note before the meeting, and possibly again after it, setting out its position on the program. It would usually include a recommendation, supported by facts, on where some of the investment should go.

A briefing note is easy to confuse with the documents around it:

Who reads it, and what they do with it

Write for the person who reads it first. In a minister’s office, that is usually the adviser responsible for your issue, not the minister. The adviser decides what the minister needs to know and how to put it.

Three things follow from that:

• It may be passed on. The office can send your note to the department for advice, and departments prepare meeting briefs for their ministers. Write each section so it still makes sense if it is copied into someone else’s brief.
• Your facts will be checked. Officials will test your figures against their own.
• It stays on file. The office keeps it, and it can be released under freedom of information (FOI) law: some departments have published stakeholders’ correspondence with ministers’ offices in their disclosure logs. Write nothing you would mind seeing published, and mark anything commercially sensitive, saying why. Under the federal FOI Act, you will usually be consulted before your business information is released, but the decision isn’t yours.

Three questions to answer

Before you write, make sure the note will answer each one:

• Why does the issue matter to you? Say what it means for your organisation: its people and sites, and its customers, members or shareholders.
• Why does it matter to the decision-maker? Show how acting on it serves their interests: their portfolio, their government’s commitments, their electorate.
• What do you want them to do? Ask for one immediate action within their power.

If you can’t answer the third question in one sentence, you aren’t ready to write the note. If your organisation has a government relations strategy, the answers should come straight from it.

What to include, in order

Use these headings, in this order.

• Title: call it a briefing note, in the heading and in the file name.
• To: the addressee’s full name and title, for example “The Hon Anthony Albanese MP, Prime Minister”.
• Date: the date the note is sent.
• Subject: one line on what the note is about. If it is for a meeting, name the meeting and its date.
• From: the sender’s full name and title, and the organisation.
• Executive summary: the issue, exactly how it affects you, and what you are asking the decision-maker to do, in three or four points.
• Why it matters to them: the link to their portfolio, their government’s commitments or their electorate.
• Background: the history of the issue and the key facts that support your position. A short timeline can help.
• Other issues: anything else you want to raise in the meeting.
• Recommendation and next steps: the outcome you want, stated plainly, so the decision-maker is in no doubt about your request, and what you will do next.
• Contact: the person the office should call with questions, usually your government relations lead, with their direct contact details.
• Attachments: anything that supports the case, listed by name.

Write the note in short points under these headings, and keep it to two pages at most. Put data, maps and technical detail in attachments, so the note can be read without them.

How to write it well

• Put the ask in the summary. Say what you want in the executive summary, in one sentence. An adviser who reads no further should still be able to tell the minister what you are asking for.
• Keep to one issue. One note, one issue, one ask. If you have three issues, lead with the one that matters most and list the others under “Other issues”, or write separate notes.
• Ask for something they can do. A backbencher can’t change a regulation, but can write to the minister, ask a question in parliament or raise it with colleagues. A minister can act within their portfolio, or take an issue to a colleague or a ministerial council. Match the ask to the power.
• Make it local. For an MP, give figures for their electorate: people employed, sites, members, customers or investment in the seat. For a minister, connect the issue to their portfolio and to what the government has already committed to. If you have addresses or postcodes but not electorates, GovConnex can map them to state and federal electorates. If you brief the opposition or the crossbench as well, rewrite the ask and why it matters for each of them.
• Use evidence they can check. Give each figure a date and a source: your own data (and how you collected it), a Hansard page, a report. Don’t round in your favour: one inflated number costs the rest their credibility.
• Name the cost and the objection. Say what your ask would cost government, who might oppose it and why, and your answer. The department will raise these anyway; it is better that your answer is already in the note.
• Write in plain English. Short sentences, active verbs and no jargon. Spell out each acronym the first time it appears, even ones the office should know.
• Keep the tone even. No criticism of the government, the opposition or individuals, and no marketing language. A note that reads as partisan is discounted, and yours may be read by people on every side.
• Make it stand alone. Someone who never saw your email should understand it. Put your organisation’s name, the date and page numbers on every page.
• Make it easy to skim. Headings, short points, white space, figures as numerals, and a simple table if it saves words. Send a PDF or Word document, not a slide deck.

Then test it. Give it to a colleague who doesn’t know the issue, take it back after two minutes, and ask what you want and why. If they can’t tell you, rewrite the executive summary.

A model briefing note

This note is for a first meeting with a minister. Kestrel Infrastructure, its people, its project and its figures are fictional; the minister, his title and the council he chairs are real. To use it as a template, keep the headings and replace everything under them.

Briefing note

To: The Hon Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Climate Change and Energy

Date: Wednesday 21 October 2026

Subject: Grid connection costs for regional battery projects, for our meeting on Tuesday 27 October

From: Ruth Calder, Chief Executive, Kestrel Infrastructure

Executive summary

• Kestrel Infrastructure is ready to build a 250 MW battery at its Gladstone site, with about 180 construction jobs and 25 ongoing roles (project plan, August 2026, attached).
• The estimated cost of connecting it to the grid has risen from $38 million to $71 million since March 2024. At that cost, the project cannot reach a final investment decision in 2027 as planned.
• We ask that you put the connection costs facing regional storage projects on the agenda for the next meeting of the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council, and ask officials to report on options.

Why it matters to you

• Storage like this backs up wind and solar, and supports the government’s goal of 82% renewable electricity by 2030.
• Three other storage projects in Central Queensland face similar increases (attached).
• The construction jobs would be in Gladstone, in the federal electorate of Flynn.

Background

• March 2024: the network operator’s first connection offer estimated $38 million.
• August 2026: a revised offer estimated $71 million, after the upgrades needed to connect the project were reassessed.
• December 2026: Kestrel’s board decides whether to keep funding design work.

Other issues

• Housing for the construction workforce in Gladstone. We are raising this with the Queensland Government, and mention it for completeness.

Recommendation and next steps

• That you put connection costs for regional storage projects on the agenda for the council’s next meeting, and ask officials to report on options to reduce them.
• Kestrel will send its cost data to your department within a week of our meeting, and our engineers can brief officials before the council meets.

Contact: Maya Reid, Head of Government Relations, Kestrel Infrastructure, 0491 570 157

Attachments: the connection offers of March 2024 and August 2026; the project plan, cost breakdown and timeline; other Central Queensland storage projects affected.

Why it works:

• The ask is in the third point, and it is within the minister’s power: he chairs the council.
• It connects the project to the minister’s portfolio and to a goal his government has set.
• The urgency comes from a date, the board’s decision in December, not from adjectives.
• Every figure has a source, and the evidence is attached and offered to the department.
• It offers something in return: the data, and a briefing for officials.
• It fits on one page.

Who should send it, and when

• Address the briefing note and meeting request to the most senior relevant person attending the meeting or responsible for the issue.
• Take their name, title and address from a current source: the GovConnex directory has each person’s full title, salutation and addresses, and exports them as a mail merge.
• Have it sent by the person in your organisation closest in seniority to the recipient.
• For example, meetings with senior ministers, premiers and departmental secretaries should almost always be led by the chief executive; a meeting with a backbench MP may be led by another executive.
• Send it five or six days before the meeting, so the office has time to read it and, if the department is briefing the minister, to pass it on. If useful, send it again straight afterwards, updated if anything changed, with a note thanking them for their time.
• Attach it to a short email of two or three lines that says the briefing note is attached and summarises the issue.
• Send it to the person who arranged the meeting. Ask whether anyone else in the office should have it, and use the office’s preferred format if it has one.
• Take printed copies to the meeting, one for each person in the room.
• Time the ask to the political calendar. A budget request needs to reach the minister while proposals are being prepared, not in the weeks before the budget is delivered.
• Don’t ask for a decision during the caretaker period before an election, when governments avoid major policy decisions, significant appointments and major contracts that would bind the next government.
• If you lobby for a client, the federal Lobbying Code of Conduct requires you and your client to be on the Australian Government Register of Lobbyists before you contact a federal minister, their staff or a public servant. When you first make contact, say that you are a registered lobbyist, name your client and say what they want you to raise. Most states and territories have their own register and rules.

Briefing your own chief executive

The note you send is half the preparation. The other half is a one-page brief for everyone going from your side, which stays internal: who you’re meeting and what they’ve said, your history with them, the ask in the same words as the note, no more than three key messages, the hard questions with short answers, what to avoid, and who says what. Our guide to meeting MPs has a model brief and a 30-minute agenda, and covers the meeting and the follow-up.

In GovConnex, Analyst drafts a meeting brief when you ask: what the person has said about the issues you follow, their roles and committees, and your team’s history with them, each point linked to its source.

Before you send it

• The ask is in the executive summary, in one sentence, and it is something this person can do.
• The note fits on two pages and makes sense without its attachments.
• Every name, title and portfolio is current. Check them on the parliament’s website on the day you send it, since portfolios change in reshuffles.
• Every figure has a date and a source.
• Each acronym is spelled out the first time it appears.
• A colleague who doesn’t know the issue can tell you the ask after one read.
• Nothing in it would embarrass you if it were published.
• The contact named on the note is available in the week it arrives.

Common questions

How long should a briefing note be? One page if you can, two at most, with supporting detail in attachments.

Should a briefing note be in bullet points? For the most part, yes: short points under clear headings, each a complete sentence. The points let the reader find what they need quickly, and complete sentences stop the ask being misread.

What is the difference between a briefing note and a briefing paper? A briefing paper, or policy brief, is usually longer and written for a wider audience, often published to inform a debate. A briefing note is written for one decision-maker, about one issue, usually ahead of one meeting or decision.

What is a ministerial brief? It is a brief a department writes for its own minister, either for a decision or for noting, and cleared by a senior official before it goes to the minister’s office. The Victorian Public Sector Commission’s guidance, for example, asks for analysis, evidence, consultation, risks, options and a clear recommendation. When you meet a minister, the department may already have briefed them on the issue, so expect its questions.

How do I address a minister in a briefing note? Use the form the Australian Government Style Manual gives: “The Hon Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Climate Change and Energy”. A minister in the Senate is “Senator the Hon” followed by their name. Ministers keep “The Hon” for life, but most other members and senators don’t use it, so check each person on the parliament’s website. State parliaments have their own conventions.