Amongst the reasons given, the fundamental explanation was that the professional bodies of accountancy failed to perceive environmental accounting development as 'sufficiently important to accountants' current activities' (p.118). Similarly, Deegan et al.(1996) observed that accountants in Australia as a group did not respond to the increasing environmental concerns of the community (p.409).Moreover,regardless of the relevance of environmental disclosure in corporate annual reports, the environmental had not gained significance amongst Australian accounting standard regulators (pp.402-403).