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.