Just over a decade ago, the Australian Government introduced funding mechanisms which aimed at reducing doctoral candidates' attrition rate and completion times, and increasing reported student satisfaction. Publicly available documents from six universities of three different classifications of universities in five Australian states were analysed to determine the programmes and strategies adopted by those universities in response to the previous government requirements. This study looks for any evidence of the impact on Australian universities' research education programmes as a result of the introduction of these mechanisms. The findings of this study suggest that there are ways in which Australian universities can/have developed new university-wide support for their research students and supervisors as a result of changing government funding mechanisms. (Contains 2 tables.)