The specific objects of the Australasian Trained Nurses' Association were:
1. To promote the interests of trained nurses in all matters affecting their work as a class.
2. To establish a system of registration for trained nurses.
3. To afford opportunities for discussing subjects bearing on the work of nursing.
4. To initiate and control schemes that will provide nurses with an allowance 'during incapacity for work caused by sickness, accident, age or other necessitous circumstances'.

The Association began in the larger training hospitals on the initiative of senior medical practitioners and nurses. It comprised an annually elected Council of seventeen members, including five qualified medical practitioners, five matrons or superintendents of nurses, five sisters and nurses, with two honorary members.

Sources used to compile this entry: Smith, Russell G, In pursuit of nursing excellence: a history of the Royal College of Nursing, Australia 1949-99, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1999, 390 pp; Strachan, Glenda, Labour of love: the history of the Nurses' Association in Queensland, 1860-1950, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1996, 291 pp.