Classic quotes, finally, from APRA, as reported by Banking Day:
"The head of policy and research at APRA, Charles Littrell, has warned Australia’s political leaders they need to support aggressive prudential supervision...[T]he aggressive intervention necessary to avoid or minimise crises would be “impossible without broad public sector support, most of all from politicians across the political spectrum.”
“Show me a country where the politicians listen to bankers more than they listen to regulators,” he said, “[and] I will show you a country which is guaranteed to have a banking crisis.”
Littrell suggested that the right approach to avoiding financial crises was “something like the discipline practised by non-drinking alcoholics”. Regulators must keep repeating that “we are not going to become light-touch regulators,” he said...
He also warned that allowing finance ministries to promote finance industry development too often led to laxity among banks. This was “the most common prelude to a financial crisis”, he said."
