APRA CEO Graeme Thompson has welcomed the public release of the Palmer report into APRA’s abilities and actions prior to the collapse of HIH. The regulator commissioned the report in October 2001 from recently retired Canadian Financial Institutions superintendent (and now Deputy MD of the Monetary Authority of Singapore) John Palmer. The report was given to the HIH Royal Commission in July, but has remained confidential until it was tendered in evidence.

APRA said in a statement that most of the recommendations from Mr Palmer’s detailed and wide-ranging review have been acted on already. Mr Thompson said the report and its recommendations were very valuable in identifying “a number of areas” where APRA’s processes were deficient.

While admitting deficiencies, Mr Thompson made sure it was understood that APRA was operating with some handicaps. “The report also describes the inadequate regulatory framework inherited by APRA, the challenges that its management and staff faced in building a new organisation from nine predecessor agencies and the inevitable difficulties these created in supervising HIH.

“More importantly, the Palmer report confirms that the reforms and improvements APRA has implemented post-HIH are on the right track. As a result of significant legislative changes and many reforms in its policies and processes made over the past two years, APRA is today a much stronger and more effective regulator”.