This special double issue of Accounting History presents 10 articles that were presented as conference papers at the sixth Accounting History International Conference (6AHIC) held in Wellington, New Zealand during 18-20 August 2010. The choice of a conference theme is often based on a connection with the location of the conference and/or acknowledged gaps in the literature. For the 6AHIC, both were the case. The conference venue was only a few minutes away from the heart of New Zealand government, and as noted in Nola Buhr's plenary presentation and the article included in this special issue, the New Zealand government was the first government to adopt accrual accounting for whole of government reporting. Yet more importantly the relationship between the state and accounting is under-represented in the accounting history literature (Funnell, 2007). The 10 articles in this issue of Accounting History reflect aspects of the diversity of the interaction between accounting and the state, as well as the diversity of approaches to accounting history (see Gaffikin, 2011). The articles cover topics from both the technical and the contextual perspectives. They introduce research from nine jurisdictions:

This article expands our understanding of the introduction of new audit arrangements in the public sector by looking at two cases relating to the audit of local government using the dual lens of political legitimacy and organizational legitimacy. The first case saw the Audit Office replace the elected auditors as the sole auditor of municipalities in 1886 and the second case saw the Auditor-General fail to gain additional powers to control the financial management of local government in 1892. Following Power (2003), the article illustrates how legitimacy was sought in these cases using the three stages of controversy, closure and credibility. The nature of the legitimacy is viewed as organizational (Suchman, 1995) or political (Levi et al., 2009). The use of the dual lens provides a deeper understanding of the form of the legitimacy and how it was obtained within the setting of local government.

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This study addresses issues relating to accounting for fixed assets by municipalities - issues not previously discussed in the accounting history literature. The paper reveals the significance of the principle of intergenerational equity and the influence of user groups in the development of accounting policy in local government. It suggests that both preparers and users of accounting information were influential in a debate on government accounting policy which took place in Wellington, New Zealand, during the early twentieth century. It is shown that the principle of intergenerational equity was accorded high importance in the debate but was subject to challenge. The finding suggest that the users of accounting information engaged in the debates on government accounting as an expression of civic duty, a notion consistent with the ethical imperative of ensuring intergenerational equity.accounting history, intergenerational equity, public sector accounting, depreciation, New Zealand,