This paper reports the preliminary results of an ongoing assessment of the most recent version of the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre (BMRC) atmospheric GCM. Many improvements, including those in various physics parameterization schemes, have been introduced in this version of the AGCM. This AGCM is expected to constitute the atmospheric component of the next version of the BMRC coupled model for climate applications, including seasonal prediction. In order to gauge the impact of these improvements on the coupled model simulations, we are analyzing the climatic variability of the key surface variables output by the AGCM and comparing the results with those obtained from reanalysis datasets. In this presentation, we will examine the performance of the AGCM in simulating the interannual variability of rainfall, surface temperature, out-going long-wave radiation, and 10-m horizontal winds. Results based on correlations between the simulated variables and various climate indices, such as Niņo 3.4 SST index and the southern annular mode index, will also be presented.