All jurisdictions identify some capacity for Executive Council to meet during the caretaker period but with different levels of advice on whether the meeting should be routine or exceptional. For example, the Commonwealth, Victorian, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia all make provision for limited and infrequent meetings to deal with routine business such as regulations and ordinances. Each jurisdiction offers the caveat that the business considered should not infringe the caretaker provisions concerning the taking of major decisions or binding an incoming government.

New South Wales advises that Executive Council will ‘meet as usual’ during the caretaker period to consider routine matters of government business. In South Australia it is accepted practice for the Executive Council to operate after the dissolution of the House of Assembly. The guidance cites the principle of the separation of powers to support that view. In the Northern Territory the advice suggests that Executive Council should cease, although provision is made to convene in exceptional circumstances. Although there is differing practice across jurisdictions, the general consensus is that there is a need to provide for the management of non-controversial routine business of government.