Assistant Directors, Communications Section

Agency Purpose

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is an independent statutory authority established by the Australian Government to maintain an impartial and independent electoral system for eligible voters through active electoral roll management, efficient delivery of polling services, and targeted education and public awareness programs.

The AEC’s values and commitments

The AEC values and commitments are an essential component of our operating environment and frame how AEC staff work. The AEC's focus is on electoral integrity through the values of quality, agility and professionalism.

The Team

The Communications, Education and Engagement Branch (CEEB) is responsible for educating and informing the community about electoral rights and responsibilities. 

The Communication Section within CEEB is responsible for a broad range of external communication (including advertising and campaigns), internal communication and design.

The Assistant Director External Communications manages a dynamic and fast-paced small team, responsible for developing and delivering effective AEC information and advertising campaigns. This includes campaigns for federal elections, by-elections and referendums.

The Opportunity

If you’re passionate about Australia’s democracy and bringing your expertise to support the Australian community to enrol and vote, we have the job for you! 

This is an exciting opportunity for a creative and skilled communications professional to work on some of the most impactful advertising activities across government with consideration to the needs of diverse audience groups across the Australian community.

Essential to the role is planning and managing project timeframes and significant budgets, and working collaboratively with team members, business areas and external service providers. 

This senior role is responsible for leading complex and/or sensitive work, under broad direction. At election time this role is responsible for delivering critical election activities in a high-pressured environment and involves building and working with an expanded team of event surge staff.  

To excel you’ll have:

• Experience leading government advertising campaigns. This includes procuring, managing and working collaboratively with creative agencies, CALD and First Nations specialists and media buying agencies. 
• Implementation of benchmark, tracking and evaluation research and ensuring the evaluation is effectively designed to measure the objectives of the campaign and research by an appointed research agency and working with suppliers to analyse and interpret the results.
• Knowledge of advertising channels, and the ability work with an agency on media planning and placement.
• Experience in the creation of effective communication content aligned to business priorities, across a wide variety of channels and for a range of audiences. 
• Project management and planning skills, with demonstrated ability to deliver results in tight timeframes.
• Experience managing a team to ensure quality output, champion a culture of innovation, and to support the career development of your team members. 
• The ability to remain positive and respond to pressure in a calm manner, while committing energy and drive to see that goals are achieved.
• Experience exercising strategic judgement and providing expert and timely communications advice and assistance to internal and external stakeholders.

 Eligibility

• AEC employees must be Australian citizens.
• Any person who is, and seen to be active in political affairs, and intends to publicly carry on this activity, may compromise the strict neutrality of the AEC and cannot be considered.
• Applicants are required to consent to, undergo, obtain and maintain a character clearance.
• Applicants are required to consent to, undergo, obtain and maintain the security clearance required for this role.
• Applicants may be required to undertake psychometric testing as part of this recruitment process.