Hearing Australia is the current incarnation of the Acoustic Research Laboratory that was set up in 1942.

Its initial purpose was the investigation of noise on behalf of the Australian Military during World War II.

After the war it helped those children whose hearing was affected by earlier rubella outbreaks.

The Commonwealth Department of Health (now the Department of Health and Ageing) took over the Laboratory and was renamed the Commonwealth Acoustic Laboratories, with the aim of providing hearing services for children and veterans.

When the Department of Human Services was formed in 2004, the agency now known as Australian Hearing was moved into its portfolio.