Book review : 1835 : the founding of Melbourne and the conquest of Australia

Book review of 1835: the Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia. By James Boyce (Melbourne: Black Inc, 2011), ISBN 978-1-86395-475-4

Gathering for God : George Brown in Oceania

Combining 'the gathering of artefacts with the gathering of souls', George Brown was a key figure in the Christian, and especially the Wesleyan Methodist, history of nineteenth-century Oceania. Using his life as a case study, Helen Bethea Gardner examines the role of Christian missionaries in the Pacific Islands. Brown's career (1860-1908) spanned one of the most tumultuous political periods in the South Pacific, as one by one islands were colonised by imperial nations. He was one of the most politically engaged of all missionaries, encouraging colonial rule in the Pacific by America, Britain, Germany and, eventually, Australia and New Zealand. Originally from the north of England, he worked as a missionary in Samoa from 1860, moving to the Bismarck Archipelago (now Papua New Guinea) in 1875. From the 1880s until his retirement in 1907, he worked in Sydney as the general secretary of the Australasian Methodist Overseas Mission. Gathering for God examines Brown's missionary letters, journals and journalism, exploring how he attracted Pacific Islanders to Christian teachings, analysing his leadership during an armed attack on New Britain villages accused of cannibalism, and looking at his work in the new discipline of anthropology. He was a major collector of artefacts (his collection is now in the Osaka Museum) and photographer of Pacific peoples (his collection is in the Australian Museum).

Application of the fair-value concept : evidence from Australian legal decisions

The concept of "fair value" is increasingly being incorporated into Australian and international accounting standards and pronouncements. The fair-value concept has also been established and developed in Australian legal cases, and an examination of pertinent court decisions is of interest to accountants. By examining and analysing relevant cases, the paper highlights some of the principles and difficulties involved in operationalising the fair-value concept for accounting and legal purposes, particularly in situations where the asset being valued is subject to imperfect or incomplete markets.

Corporate social responsibility: why business should act responsibly and be accountable

This paper identifies drivers which are pressurising organisations to adopt corporate social responsibility and produce corporate social reports. The authors discuss what constitutes a good report, some of the problems with current reporting practices, benefits to organisations which produce corporate social reports and the costs to those which do not.

Accountants, ethical issues and the corporate governance context

A major survey of members of CPA Australia on the issue of ethics was recently conducted. A questionnaire was sent to 7,000 members at random, with those surveyed being asked whether they had come across any one of 14 ethical issues in the previous year. They were also asked to list the issues in order of importance as regards maintaining ethical standards, even if they had not been confronted by them.

Public interest, ethics, and the balanced scorecard: implications for the accounting profession

The accounting profession bos been grappling with the issue of public interest responsibility for a number of years. The aim of this paper is to examine how a balanced scorecard (BSC) model can be used by the accounting profession to more effectively incorporate a public interest responsibility in its strategic framework. By using a BSC model, the paper provides an integrated framework for translating strategic values into a comprehensive set of objectives, performance measures and improvement actions.

Beyond ethics : a community platform to secure moral integrity

Stakeholders perceive the role of accountants to reflect trust, honesty, impartiality, fairness and transparency. The aim of this paper is to explore avenues to strengthen the moral integrity of professional bodies and their members. The resulting recommendations include a community or "milieu" approach.

IES 4 - ethics education revisited

In 2003, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) issued a set of International Education Standards (IES). IES 4 Professional Values, Ethics and Attitudes aims to equip candidates for membership of an IFAC member body with the appropriate professional values, ethics and attitudes to function as professional accountants. This paper explores the implications of IES 4 and analyses some of the challenges arising from an international professional accounting body prescribing ethics education. It concludes with an overview of considerations to be addressed to ensure that the implementation of IES 4 is successful.

Jurisdictional differences in contracting out GBE audits : the impact on audit pricing

This paper examines audit costs for government business enterprises in various Australian jurisdictions, focusing on whether contracting private-sector suppliers induces competitive pricing and hence lower-priced audits. One jurisdiction (New South Wales) is shown to have low levels of contracting-out. It is argued that this lowers price competition and therefore, we predict, audit costs in NSW will be higher than elsewhere in Australia. An empirical comparison shows that, controlling for other factors, NSW is statistically significantly more expensive than other Australian jurisdictions. Alternative explanations relating to variation in audit quality, jurisdiction differences and relative cost are also discussed.

Auditor selection : what influences decisions by listed companies?

Major business failures, including Enron and WorldCom in the United States and Harris Scarfe and HIH in Australia, and related alleged audit failures, have put the choice of auditor on the agenda. The choice of the right auditor has economic consequences for an auditee and implications for corporate governance. Factors important to explaining auditor choice are discussed, including institutional factors (pertaining to the auditee and auditor) and newer emerging criteria as well as networking between directors and auditors. Relevant research and the policy implications for good corporate governance of auditor choice in publicly listed companies are explored.

An Australian response to recent developments in the market for audit services

Where the quality - both competence and independence - of an audit is tested, often in the circumstance of a corporate failure, auditors frequently have good defenses as to their competency but rarely do they have equally convincing defenses for the objectivity of their decision-making or the independence of their audit. It is recommended that large audit firms establish an independence board with the authority to define, review and decide upon all threats and potential threats to independence. It would also have responsibility for quality-control and educational programs in respect of audit firm's independence decision-making. Firms would make transparent the processes of the boards, their membership and quality-control procedures. Firms would compete on their independence control processes and not just competence and price. Additionally, firms need to encourage a culture that rewards personnel for seeking counsel on issues pertinent to independence.

The Australian auditing and assurance standards board after the implementation of CLERP 9

This paper traces the establishment of the reconstituted Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB) as a result of the CLERP (Audit Reform and Corporate Disclosure) Act 2004, and its progress in developing auditing standards that are "in the public interest". The paper canvasses the composition of the AUASB, its transparency and due process, its relationship with the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board and the Financial Reporting Council, and its resourcing and attitude to researching issues of importance in auditing. The paper discusses methods that might be used to provide evidence of the efficacy of the reforms to auditing standard-setting.

Cost information in the new public sector environment : cost accounting change in a state-owned hospital

This paper reports on a case study of the utilisation and users of cost information in a state-owned teaching and research hospital in Australia. The findings indicate that the current utilisation of the cost information resides primarily at higher executive and managerial levels of the organisation. Organisational change, particularly pressure for improved productivity and competitiveness driven by public-sector reforms in Australia, is significantly filtering down throughout the subject hospital. Various productive and unproductive ways that cost information is used, and impediments to the use of costing information in the hospital setting, are identified.