As he sifted through a report detailing horror stories about Australian swimming's abusive culture, he thought he was back in the 1990s.

"As an athlete, I read the report and it was like a re-telling of my life through swimming in many ways," Perkins told AAP on Friday.

The famed dual Olympic gold medal swimmer is now Swimming Australia's president.

Perkins optimistically hoped the report would show a shift in attitudes from when he was at his peak in the pool in the 1990s.

"I actually was surprised that as much of what used to go on is still going on - in terms of pressuring athletes to conform to a certain physique, pressuring them to modify their social behaviour to fit a particular ideal of what commitment to swimming might look like," he said.

"There's a lot of archaic mentality that goes into that. And I did assume that we had all matured to an extent.

"There's still too many elements of our sport that haven't modernised in that regard.

"This is not historical. This is not going back 10, 20 years ... this panel's report is about what happens today.

"It's happening today and it shouldn't be."

The independent report made 46 recommendations after hearing from more than 150 people involved in swimming.

"Let's be honest," Perkins said.

"One of the things I was surprised about is that while there is influence impact of coaching or adult leadership within the sport, there is also actually a culture of our female athletes supporting each other to react to that in a way that you would certainly hope that they wouldn't react.

"And so those athlete leaders need to be fully engaged and part of the solution.

"I hope they're optimistic that this is going to be an opportunity for us all to really see swimming move forward and modernise its approach in how we deal with young people."

Australian Associated Press