Australian archival authorities take a very active role in setting records management standards, providing guidelines for records managers in their work and approving records retention and disposal schedules for state and national government agencies. Thus ‘archivists’ in Australia have a very strong role in records management processes. There are two principal drivers for this approach: one is the practical matter of capturing and managing digital records, and the other is the acceptance of the Records continuum theoretical model. This paper outlines some specific approaches taken to identifying and managing archival records in Australian government systems and how this affects the structure of the recordkeeping professions and professional education.