Since Justice Neville Owen’s HIH report was made available last Wednesday, the media has been awash with opinions as to whether it went far enough and whether royal commissioner Neville Owen has fingered enough people.

The print media is the major opinion-setter, and its reception was mixed. Fairfax publications like The Age, the Australian Financial Review and the Sydney Morning Herald took a hard line against the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), speculating on the regulator’s future. The Age’s prestigious columnist Stephen Bartholomeusz said “the true impact” of the royal commission’s findings won’t be felt until its recommendations are dealt with in the courts. The AFR argued Justice Owen failed to provide resolutions.

The Sydney Morning Herald showed only contempt for the HIH “ringleaders”, arguing HIH directors “blindly followed” Ray Williams, “a leader with no sense of direction”.

Nor was APRA spared. The SMH’s Geoff Kitney said APRA is “as ineffectual as the Iraqi Republican Guard’s defence of Saddam Hussein’s regime”. But wait, there’s more. He said people affected by the collapse should purchase a copy of the report, read the chapters on regulation and “weep at the travesty of a system that was supposed to protect them”. He said the regulators’ attempts to put in place tougher policies after the collapse were “so soft they made virtually no impact”. Yes, well…

News Corp titles The Australian and the Herald Sun in Melbourne were more emotional, blaming the regulators and pointing out that plenty of other companies have borrowed the HIH line, treating corporate governance as a foreign concept.

One Australian article described Williams as the fallen emperor of an insurance empire. The ABC’s Business Breakfast program suggested that some of the less high-profile players in the saga were “spared”.