APRA reluctant to name heatmap advisers

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has declined to disclose to a key Parliamentary committee the names of the consultant experts it used to help devise its approach to superannuation heat maps.

Despite significant pressure from the chair of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Tim Wilson who referred to his ability to use Freedom of Information protocols, APRA deputy chair, Helen Rowell, declined to reveal which consultants the regulator had used.

Rowell said that APRA had “engaged external experts to assist us with providing review and validation of the approaches in particular areas” but declined to say who those experts were.

Asked why, and who they were, Rowell stated: “We haven't got agreement from all of them to name them and we don't propose to name some and not others”.

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Wilson then queried APRA’s reluctance saying he was confused.

“You have actually got a position that has been put forward by APRA. You have used external parties to inform your decision making and presumably they have been contracted by APRA but you’re not prepared to disclose who has been contracted by APRA to do so,” he said.

Rowell said that was correct and one of her senior executive colleagues said that not all those people APRA had used had given consent to be named.

APRA chair, Wayne Byers later said that notwithstanding the use of outside advisers, APRA took total ownership of the heat map approach.