Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR): to establish a centre of excellence for the management of digital collections.

National Library of Australia: has implemented Open Publish to advance the Library's understanding of hosting an open access journal publishing service using Open Journal Systems.

Queensland University of Technology (QUT): has developed the Oak Law Project (Open Access to Knowledge) with the goal to make sharing knowledge across domains, and the world, both legal and efficient.

Macquarie University: has voted that research articles be deposited in the online Macquarie University repository, ResearchOnline, after acceptance for publication.

Australian Research Repositories Online to the World (ARROW): has been developed to identify and test software or solutions to support best practice institutional digital repositories comprising e-prints, electronic theses, e-research and electronic publishing.

Australian Research Councils funding rules for 2008: this document sets out the funding rules for Discovery Projects, a scheme funded under the Australian Research Council's National Competitive Grants Program (NCGP), which comply with the requirements of the ARC Act.

Australian Research Council (ARC) - Have now stated clearly in their funding rules that a reason must be provided if researchers do not deposit into a subject or institutional repository. Relevent section is: 1.4.5. Dissemination of research outputs.

National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) - Has recently stated in their 2008 Funding Policy that in order to maximise the benefits from research they fund that researchers are encouraged to deposit their data in an electronic repository wherever possible. Relevent section is 31. Dissemination of Grant Outcomes.

Australian Bureu of Statistics (ABS) adopts Creative Commons (CC) license: in an ongoing project to enhance the design and functionality its website the ABS will adobt an Attribution-only Creative Commons license for the majority of its web content on the 18th and 19th of December 2008.

Review of the National Innovation System recommends Open Access: The Australian government on September 9 released the final report of its Review of the National Innovation System, entitled VenturousAustralia. The report includes this recommendation: "... Australian governments should adopt international standards of open publishing as far as possible. Material released for public information by Australian governments should be released under a creative commons licence. ..."

Australia increases commitment to Open Access: Kim Carr, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, said he intended to implement reforms aimed at "unlocking public information and content, including the results of publicly funded research", following a review of the country's innovation.

Open Access publishing: A two-day Public Knowledge Project Workshop December 4 and 5, 2008 at the University of Sydney.

Open Access and Research Conference 2008 - held in Brisbane from the 24th to the 25th of September this conference will discuss ways to optimise access to and reuse of research especially that which is publicly funded.

A fourth OA mandate for Australia: Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has released its Project Grants Funding Policy for funding commencing in 2008 (undated). The new NHMRC policy is to encourage open access for the research it funds.

Australia's ARC expects OA for ARC-funded projects: the Australian Research Councils (ARC) Funding Rules for funding commencing in 2008.