This paper examines the current move to the international harmonisation of public sector accounting standards in Australia and New Zealand. It argues that an examination of the historical arrangements to standard setting will do much to inform the current dilemmas posed by the current...

This paper focuses on issues and consequences for the public sector from the current policy decision to adopt sector-neutral International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) from reporting periods on or after 1 January 2005. It contends that an examination of the history of private and public...

This article examines the political processes surrounding public sector accounting standard setting, in particular, the Australian decision to adopt sector-neutral International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). It contends that the history of private and public sector involvement in the...

Accounting practices in the public sector have undergone significant changes and reform in the past three decades (Barret, 1996; Hodges and Mellet, 2003; Guthrie, et al., This has included a trend in moving government accounting and external reporting to cohere with private sector models and approaches...

This paper examines the controversy surrounding the use of the Inverted‐Sum‐Of‐Years‐Digits (ISOYD) method of goodwill amortisation and events leading to its banning by the Australian accounting regulatory bodies. Companies using the method claimed that a prohibition would reduce their...

Purpose: In the context of the Australian Government’s attempts to impose budget austerity measures on publicly funded universities in its higher education sector, the purpose of this paper is to assess the sector’s financial health. Design/methodology/approach: The multi-dimensional study...