Reserve Bank of Australia official Luci Ellis had some sober words on Friday for anyone hoping for a watering down of Basel III."If the Australian authorities have limited appetite for continually adding to the reform program, we have even less appetite for rolling it back," she said."A return to the pre-crisis set-up would be a mistake. "Australia went into the crisis with a financial system that was better placed to handle the shocks than some other systems were. But there were some things that could have been better and have since improved. "Consumer protection rules now cover a wider range of loan types. "Funding structures in banking now better reflect liquidity risks. "The authorities have some more effective ways to resolve financial firms if they do fail. And protection for depositors has been strengthened and clarified. Those are just a few examples of the work that has been done in recent years."Ellis said Australian authorities had been actively engaged in developing the post-crisis reforms. "In doing so, we have worked to ensure that global reforms can still fit local conditions," she said. "We are just one voice among many - and a fairly small one. Even so, our efforts have met with some success. For example, the new Basel liquidity rules needed to be workable in countries like Australia, where there is not much government debt. Partly because of the efforts of the Australian authorities, an option was added to allow banks to meet the Liquidity Coverage Ratio through a committed liquidity facility with the central bank. Several other countries in a similar situation will be using the same approach."Tailoring global rules for local conditions is a very different thing from ignoring global standards entirely. "Walking away from these global reforms is not an option for Australia. Australian financial firms play in a global financial system. "They diversify their investor base by tapping global markets. So they need to be able to show that they meet the minimum standards that the global market expects. "For banks, that includes the Basel III package."Ellis was speaking at the Economic and Social Outlook Conference hosted by the Melbourne Institute.