The mission of the AUF is:[4] Bringing Sport, Conservation and Awareness to the Underwater World.The AUF is a membership-based organisation whose day-to-day operations are overseen by a federal board and by a number of committees (known as commissions) for following activities – finswimming (commission known as Ozfin Inc.), scuba, snorkel, spearfishing and underwater hockey (commission known as Underwater Hockey Australia).
[10] The AUF is a member of the World AquaChallenge Association (WAA) and Recfish Australia.
[11][12][13] It is also one of the organisations represented on the Standards Australia's Committee CS/83, Recreational Underwater Diving.
[16][17] AUF currently offers training in snorkelling (including breath-hold technique) for open water and pool environments, and in coaching levels accredited with the Australian Government's National Coaching Accreditation Scheme (NCAS) for three sports.
Originally launched in 1985 under the name of the School Snorkelling Programme, the openwater training stream (known as Ocean) supports both recreational diving as well as the sports of spearfishing and photofishing (a breath-hold version of the sport of underwater photography offered by CMAS) while the pool stream is intended to develop proficiencies in finswimming and underwater hockey.