For the red boxes carried by British ministers, see Red box (government).
The parliamentary despatch boxes in Australia's House of Representatives. The left box is used by the Government; the right box by the Opposition.
A despatch box (alternatively dispatch box) is one of several types of boxes used in government business. Despatch boxes primarily include both those sometimes known as red boxes or ministerial boxes, which are used by the Sovereign and his ministers in the British government to securely transport sensitive documents, and boxes used in the lower houses of the parliaments of the United Kingdom and Australia.[1] The term was used as early as the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, referring to a box used to carry an important message for the Queen.
These ministerial boxes, generally red, are now an iconic symbol of the United Kingdom government. Despatch boxes of a different design and generally made of wood are used as lecterns from which frontbench members of parliament delivered speeches to their parliamentary chamber. They were originally used for members to carry bills and other documents into the chamber. The Australian House of Representatives and the House of Commons each keep a pair of ornate wooden despatch boxes, usually with one box on the government side and one on the opposition side of the table that divides the opposing frontbenches. Whereas backbenchers in both parliaments generally deliver addresses to the chamber while standing at their seat, frontbenchers (ministers and shadow ministers) deliver their addresses from their side's despatch box. By tradition, the modern despatch boxes often contain the religious texts used for swearing in new members of the respective chamber.
There are two variant spellings in current English; dispatch or despatch, with the former being more common in English today, though the latter is favoured by the government when referring to the boxes,[2] and is first attested in the 1580s as referring to an important message.[3]
^Cite error: The named reference aus-peo was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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"Red Boxes". www.gov.uk. HM Treasury. 1 March 2011. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
^"Origin and meaning of dispatch". Online Etymology Dictionary.
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