Escaping accountability: A case of Australia’s asylum seeker policy

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: first, what contracts, instruments and accounting activities constitute Australia’s offshore asylum seeker processing policy in practice? Second, how are notions of legitimacy and accountability mediated through the network constituted by this policy? Design/methodology/approach – The paper is located in the critical interpretivist approach to accounting research. It is based on an exhaustive documentary analysis. Policy documents, contract documents, records of parliamentary inquiries (Hansard) and legislation were analysed drawing on a network policy perspective.