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Reference with Harvard

Government Reports

The Book format is used when referencing government reports.
The following details should be provided for reports in a reference list:

  • Author's name (for many reports, this is an organisation rather than an individual)
  • Year of publication
  • The report title in italics
  • The number (if available)
  • The Publisher
  • Place of Publication

Examples

Australia. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet 2015, Final report of the National Ice Taskforce, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Canberra.
Here is a link to the PDF publication online so you can see the difference between the information presented on the publication and the way it is referenced.

Examples:

General: (Australia. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet 2015)
With a page reference: (Australia. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet 2015, p.55)

Sometimes it is difficult to find all the referencing information for a particular report, for example, Bringing them home - the report about the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from their communities.
One way of obtaining this information quickly is to use Google. Enter the name of the report + nla OR the name of the report + trove to locate a National Library Catalogue record about this publication

Here is an example from the result list on Google. It provides all the information required to reference this report.

Australian Bureau of Statistics

Once upon a time, the Australian Bureau of Statistics produced beautiful hard copy and PDF publications which could be referenced as books.
Things have changed a bit and now they tend to produce information in web page format. These pages include downloads in the form of 'data cubes' in excel format. When referencing these publications, use the Documents from electronic sources format.

  • Author's name (for many reports, this is an organisation rather than an individual)
  • Year of publication
  • The report title in single quotation marks
  • The publication number (if readily available)
  • Viewed date
  • <URL>

Examples:

Australian Bureau of Statistics 2018, Recorded Crime - Offenders, 2016-17, cat. no. 4519.0, viewed 23 July 2018 from <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4519.0>.
Here is a link to the publication online so you can see the difference between the information presented on the page and the way it is referenced.

Examples:

(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2018)