Environmental DNA (eDNA) analyses are rapidly gaining attention from the research and natural resource management communities as a potentially fast, universal, accurate and cost-effective way to measure state and change of biodiversity assets and biosecurity threats. The need for scalable biological monitoring is particularly acute for Australia, because of its high biodiversity, large geographic size and small human population (including the world’s largest marine reserve estate). Similarly, New Zealand’s diverse interior landscapes and coastlines rely on innovative approaches for biotic surveying. Over the last few years, the eDNA field has grown sizeably and is characterised by great diversity of practice at the field, laboratory, bioinformatic, and interpretive stages. Globally, standardisation is receiving attention, but is far from settled, and little progress towards that has been made in Australia and New Zealand.