The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) opposes a Treasury plan for controlling access to the Australian market by direct offshore foreign insurers (DOFIs) and discretionary mutual funds.

Officials are mulling over more than 20 submissions responding to Treasury’s December discussion paper which unveiled the plan. If you were quick, you would have seen the APRA submission on the Treasury website alongside other submissions. However, it was removed, and despite assurances it would be returned to the website last week, still hasn’t resurfaced.

So what makes the APRA submission interesting enough that no one can read it? A reliable source who read the submission before it vanished says it directly contradicts Treasury’s plan to control DOFIs.

Treasury’s discussion paper, released in December, says APRA can decide which countries have prudential regulation comparable to Australia’s. But the APRA submission says such a scheme is unworkable. Instead, it wants all DOFIs trading into Australia to be rated by reputable agencies, with intermediaries permitted to deal only with DOFIs that meet set ratings standards.

APRA spokesman Stuart Snell yesterday bluntly refused to discuss the submission, the reason for its disappearance or its likely fate. “It’s APRA’s submission to Treasury,” he said. “It’s private; it’s not a public document.”

Well, it was, if only briefly. Anyone who has a copy of the submission before it was whipped off the website can share the contents with the industry by emailing it to the Editor.