It was founded in 1962 to support and unify the work of Australian state statistical societies that were already in existence and had about 800 members in 2019.
It has its own publishing arm, the Australian Statistical Publishing Association Inc. Its main publication is The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics.
The SSA is an affiliated organisation of the International Statistical Institute.
It recognizes outstanding achievement in, and contribution to, the discipline of statistics.
The Society runs the Australian Statistical Conference, which is held biennially over five days.