The Long and Winding Road to Governmental Financial Transparency

Thank you, Tony for the introduction. Good morning everyone.

It is always a pleasure to be in Melbourne. And it is a particular pleasure to be participating in this convention, both as a member of CPA Australia, and someone who, admittedly a very long time ago, was on the public sector committee of the Tasmanian branch.

Thinking about what to cover in this presentation lead me to a personal reflection on what has been achieved in governmental financial reporting over the past 40 years, where we are now, and what remains to be done. Even as a very new graduate in accounting, working in the public service in New Zealand 40 years ago, I could not understand why governments did not seem to use good accounting information.