Chapter 9: The Role Of Accounting In The Privatization Of State Trading Enterprises In New Zealand
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Published:2006
June Pallot, 2006. "The Role Of Accounting In The Privatization Of State Trading Enterprises In New Zealand", The Legacy of June Pallot: Public Sector Financial Management Reform, Susan Newberry
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Dramatic public sector reforms, including accounting reforms, in New Zealand have attracted considerable international interest in recent years (Hood OECD 1993; Office of the Auditor-General of Canada 1995). While New Zealand is far from being alone in its efforts to commercialize, corporatize, and privatize1 the public sector, developments under its fourth Labour government, which was in office from 1984 to 1990, went further and faster than in any other country. In their influential and widely read book, Reinventing Government,Osborne and Gaebler (1993, p. 330) noted that:
New Zealand has gone the farthest along the entrepreneurial path.... In one fell swoop, New Zealand did away with its old civil service system, freeing department managers to negotiate their own contracts with their employees. It eliminated regulations that inhibited competition in both the public and private sectors—forcing government-owned businesses.... into more competitive markets. And it adopted a budget system focused on performance .... and an accrual accounting system modelled on business accounting.
