Governments in Australia are in the process of implementing accrual reporting for their departments and governments as a whole. The central issue of this paper is to provide an explanation as to how general purpose financial reporting became a significant issue for governments in Australia....

In the past two decades, the public sector both in Australia and overseas has undergone a period of intense change. The focus has been on efficiency, effectiveness and value for money of public sector operations. The methods by which governments account and report on their operations has...

“Probity audits” are a new type of audit gaining some popularity in the Australian public sector. Probity audits refer to independent reviews of government privatisations, contracting out projects (government procurements), and expression of interests to ascertain whether procedures followed...

Probity audits, real time audits which review compliance with process and conformance with guidelines, are gaining popularity in the Australian public sector. Prior research has noted that the conduct of probity audits by auditors‐general may pose problems for their independence. This paper...