The agency is the government's technical adviser on aspects of geoscience, and serves as the repository of geographic and geological data collated by the Commonwealth.

On a user pays basis, the agency offers geospatial services, including topographic maps and satellite imagery.

It is also a major contributor to the Australian Government's free, open data collections such as data.gov.au[3] and portal.ga.gov.au.

Its history dates back almost to Federation in 1901 when it was decided to set aside land for the national capital.

This role takes the Agency well beyond its historic focus on resource development and topographic mapping to topics as diverse as natural hazards such as tsunami and earthquakes, environmental issues, including the impacts of climate change, groundwater research, marine and coastal research, carbon capture and storage and vegetation monitoring as well as Earth observations from space.