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The purpose of this paper is to answer the following questions: What are the theoretical and practical antecedents for recognising land under roads (LUR) as an asset in local government financial reports? Why was the process of regulating this aspect of accounting practice so protracted and so controversial?

The method used a critical analytical review and synthesis of relevant literature.

This study rejects the recognition of LUR, and suggests that the requirements to account for LUR should be withdrawn immediately. Regardless of the way that the debate has evolved as to the need or otherwise to value LUR or the methodology to be adopted, until the issue of a consistent, standards-based data set is addressed, there is unlikely to be a unified useful outcome.

The study’s findings provided opportunity to reach an overall conclusion and make policy recommendations regarding the saga of accounting for LUR by Australian local governments. However, the ability to generalise beyond Australia to other countries would need to be tested by additional research.

The study’s findings provided assessment of the impact of valuing LUR on financial reporting by local governments and suggested policy recommendations.

This study provided an understanding of Australian local governments’ accounting choices in regard to the valuation of LUR and documented the history of early adoption of valuation of LUR by local governments.

The literature on the public sector and accrual accounting is extensive and varied. However, there have been only isolated studies on the specific issue of LUR (Barton, 1999a, 1999b; Hoque, 2004; Rowles et al., 1998a, 1998b, 1998c, 1999). This study adds to the few isolated studies on the specific issue of accounting for LUR. Originality/value – This study provided policymakers with rich information about accounting for LUR and, it should have the capacity to impact on the future policy directions and recommendations.

Australian fiscal federalism possesses a greater degree of vertical imbalance than comparable federations elsewhere due to a concentration of revenue-raising powers at the level of the Commonwealth government and a concentration of expenditure functions at the state and local government levels. Efforts to deal with this problem have focused on intergovernmental grants. While substantial literature exists on the financial nexus between the Commonwealth and state governments, little research effort has been expended on the local government grants process. The present paper seeks to remedy this by documenting the evolution and role of the local government grants process.

Over the past decade Australian local government has undergone drastic change. The sheer pace of reform has made it difficult for practitioners and scholars alike to document and evaluate these rapid changes and even most recent extant analyses are now dated. Given the urgent need to review trends in Australian local government, this paper examines the recent programs of legislative, structural, workplace and financial reform.

Accountability in the public sector has generally been discussed in light of public sector auditing and performance measurement. Performance audit or ‘value for money’ audit practice has been implemented at various government levels for assessing three key areas of performance – economy, efficiency and effectiveness. This practice has been significantly influenced by recent reforms in the public sector globally. Local governments or city councils play a significant role in providing community services at grass-root levels. How different actors are involved in auditing practices at the local level has attracted recent research interest world-wide. This chapter contributes to the global public sector accounting literature by presenting a critical overview of the development of local government auditing in Australia. It focusses on the role of the local government regulations and various stakeholders in audit scope, methodologies and practices with an illustration from the state of Victoria in Australia. The evidence presented will contribute to understanding international audit practices in local governments across the globe.

Recently the inclusion of land under roads as an asset in financial reports by Australian local governments has led to several concerns arising from dissatisfaction with certain elements of the new accounting standards and concepts, particularly, the Australian Accounting Standard AAS 27 “Financial Reporting by Local Governments” and the Standard Accounting Concepts SAC 4 “Definition and Recognition of the Elements of Financial Statements.” These concerns have also meant that most local governments are opposing the recognition of land under roads as an asset for financial reporting purposes. With the inclusion of land under roads dominating the asset element of financial reports, the relevance and reliability of valuation of land under roads needs to be examined. Using an Australian case, this paper examines whether this information provides greater relevance and reliability to users. The paper suggests that, as lands under roads do not affect the Council’s economic position and this information has no value to the users of the information, there is no point in increasing the council’s financial reporting costs.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the impact of management and colleagues on the perception of work harassment and outcomes of local government employees in Australia and the USA.

Completed surveys from local government employees (265 from the USA and 250 from Australia) were analysed using structural equation modelling and an ANOVA.

The results depict support for the overall measurement and structural models showing that workplace relationships impact on work harassment, and in turn employee outcomes (psychological wellbeing and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour-Individual (OCB-I)), although not all paths were accepted for each country. Statistically significant differences were found between the Australian and USA samples for both the measurement and structural models, with the sample from the USA showing much higher levels of satisfaction with workplace relationships, higher levels of psychological wellbeing, OCB-I, and lower perceptions of work harassment.

The findings provide implications that Australian and US local government employees, positioned closest to the public, experience work harassment probably as a result of chronic under-resourcing both in terms of manpower and other resources, and coupled with unrealistically high-performance targets. The results depict that such work harassment is resulting in lower psychological wellbeing (USA only) and lower extra-role behaviour associated with OCB-I (Australia and USA).

The value of this paper is that it benchmarks the impact of workplace relationships on work harassment for local government employees across two Anglo-American countries.

Australia notably was one of the few developed nations to avoid a technical recession subsequent to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). However, the fact that the nation escaped a technical recession doesn’t mean that citizens and local governments were not subject to some of the measures associated with post-GFC austerity. In particular, intergovernmental grants – an important source of revenue for Australian local governments – were frozen by the federal government seeking to mitigate large deficits over the forward estimates. This chapter compares and contrasts the budgetary outcomes for the local governments of Australia’s two most populous states – New South Wales and Victoria. We find that the disparate regulatory controls in the two municipal jurisdictions were strongly associated with the budgetary outcomes of the individual municipalities: In particular, we present evidence which suggests that taxation limitations and lax investment guidelines in New South Wales can be associated with relatively inferior budgetary positions and higher budgetary volatility. By way of contrast, Victorian councils had the flexibility to vary rates of taxation to the changing conditions and largely avoided investment losses associated with the financial failure of Lehman Brothers. In New South Wales the regulatory response to deteriorating municipal budgets (subsequent to the GFC) has been to execute a radical programme of forced amalgamations. Somewhat ironically, the Victorian state government has recently imposed taxation limitations on its municipalities. In summary, this chapter demonstrates the saliency of regulatory constraints on municipal resilience, in the context of post-GFC economic challenges.

Faced by increased globalization, the dissatisfaction of Australian citizens, and a curtailing of spending, the Australian Government has embarked on a major reform agenda centered on new public management ideals to achieve greater economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. A major driver of reform in all levels of government has been the introduction of the national competition policy. Describes the recent developments in Australian public sector and discusses reform implications for accounting, accountability and performance in Queensland local governments. Suggests that accounting plays a significant role in promoting accountability, efficiency and effectiveness of public sector services.

Measurement practices have long been considered vital for informing the management of performance in organisations. Their application to local governments is a more recent, yet multi-decade phenomenon facilitated by New Public Management trends. This paper aims to review the landscape of publications that discuss performance measurement (PM) practices in Australian and New Zealand local government contexts and identify implications for future research.

A systematic review methodology was used to identify a shortlist of publications. Next, a rating-based researcher appraisal process was applied. Multiple iterations of search and appraisal were conducted to form the basis for inductive thematic analysis and synthesis.

Analysing 65 PM publications, two interrelated themes, namely, discourses of performance as efficiency, accountability or strategic growth and change were identified, which influence the adoption of local PM tools and frameworks. As demands for strategic growth and more complex service delivery increase, strategic and localised adaptation of PMs may be required to integrate learning and communicative competencies with technical and operational capabilities.

The systematic review methodology has been applied to address some of the limitations of publication and reporting biases in literature. This research provides a starting point for future investigations and broadening of discourse in local government contexts.

This paper represents the first systematic review of 1995–2020 publications on performance management practices used by local governments in Australia and New Zealand.

The purpose of this paper is to test a model of cooperation between internationalising businesses and local and host country governments in the context of Australian companies internationalising to China.

The paper presents a model for the political dimensions of internationalising based on corporate political theory and the cooperative view of management. Data were collected from personal interviews with representatives from 40 Australian organisations with businesses or operations in China. The data were analysed using NVivo.

Assistance provided by the Australian government was often sought and was perceived to be beneficial. Most participants experienced policies and regulations which affected their entry modes. In ten cases they acted as barriers and significantly influenced entry mode choice. The majority of participants viewed the development of relationships with the Chinese government as important and employed a variety of relationship behaviours. Over half of the participants identified the need to understand and deal with the psychically distant government structures of the Chinese government, namely government intervention in business.

The model links the organisational objectives of businesses internationalising to China, understanding the political/regulatory environment, selecting an entry mode and developing/maintaining a successful business. To achieve these objectives corporate political behaviour must reflect the sovereign powers in place at the time.

The paper presents a model which develops the literature for the political dimensions of internationalisation. It also presents empirical data on the political dimensions of internationalising into China. These findings will assist businesses in understanding political factors when internationalising to China.