Open access (OA) to academic publications has seen extensive growth in Australia since the first open access university repository was established in 2001 and OA is a fundamental part of the scholarly publishing and research landscape in Australia. There are open access policies at the two major research funders: The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Australian Research Council (ARC) and around half of Australian Universities have an OA policy or statement. Open Access Australasia (formerly The Australasian Open Access Strategy Group), the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), and the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) are advocates for Open Access and related issues in Australia.

2001: ANU became Australia's first university to establish an open repository for ePrints.

2003: QUT was the first university in the world to mandate open access for all of its scholarly works.

2010: CAUL released a Statement on Open Scholarship and the Australian Government made a Declaration of Open Government.

2012: The NHMRC's Open Access Policy took effect.

2013: The ARC's OA policy took effect making all ARC Discovery projects from 2014 comply.

2014: ALIA adopted a full open access policy.

2016: The Australian Productivity Commission report on the Intellectual Property system recommended that all federal, state and territory governments "implement an open access policy for publicly-funded research".