NATA's role is to serve the national and public interest by ensuring that member facilities comply with relevant international and Australian standards and so are competent to provide consistently reliable testing, calibration, measurement and inspection data to government, industry and the wider community. As part of Australia's standards and conformance infrastructure, NATA facilitates international trade by reducing barriers such as technical barriers to trade.

NATA represents Australia in:

• The International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC).
• The Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC).
• The OECD Working Group on Good Laboratory Practice.

The above roles are recognised by the Australian Government in a Memorandum of Understanding with NATA. Under this MOU, the Commonwealth Government:

• Uses NATA facilities to meet its testing needs, wherever possible.
• Encourages State Governments and other instrumentalities to do likewise.
• Commits all Commonwealth Government laboratories to obtain and maintain NATA accreditation, where appropriate.

Standards, measurement and conformance in Australia

NATA is one of four bodies that form Australia's standards and conformance infrastructure, which provides an important mechanism for improving the business efficiency and competitiveness of Australian industry in international and national markets. The others are Standards Australia, the National Measurement Institute (NMI) and the Joint Accreditation System of Australia and New Zealand (JAS-ANZ).