Politics, Processes and the Future of Australian Accounting Standards

Philip Brown and Ann Tarca

Abacus, 2001, vol. 37, issue 3, 267-296

Abstract: The perspective of public interest and interest group theories of regulation is adopted to consider the future of Australian accounting standards following major reforms proposed by the Australian Commonwealth government as part of its 1997 Corporate Law Economic Reform Program (CLERP). Interest groups in the Australian environment are identified. Their lobbying had influenced the initial proposals; and their reactions when the CLERP proposals were published resulted in substantial modifications to the CLERP proposals, which had initially recommendedthat International Accounting Standards (IASs) be adopted as national standards from 1 January 1999. The role of accounting standards and the structure of standard setting are explored. The political nature of standard setting is illustrated through a review of the CLERP proposals, submissions of various interest groups and the government’s responses to them. The central arguments are that key assumptions underlying the CLERP proposals are flawed, and that the CLERP proposals could not achieve the outcomes desired of them. It seems inevitable, however, that international standards eventually will supplant domestic standards. In the longer term, Australian standard setters seem destined to have a diminished role in the international standard setting arena.

Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6281.00088

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:abacus:v:37:y:2001:i:3:p:267-296

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0001-3072

Access Statistics for this article

Abacus is currently edited by G.W. Dean and S. Jones

More articles in Abacus from Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().