Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

No, it has not happened in Australia, because this Labor government provided a bank guarantee. We acted decisively and that is a very good example of a forward-thinking Labor government acting decisively, before the financial systems started collapsing. What we saw in the US and other European countries was that their governments, particularly in the US, have struggled to act decisively after their financial systems started collapsing. This Labor government believes that it is necessary, given the serious financial and economic circumstances developing in the rest of the world that have now flowed on to China. And Chinese growth is down significantly, which obviously is very important in the context of the significant drop in mineral prices which flows through to our economy, so acting is appropriate because this government believes in decisive action and forward thinking.

If other governments around the world want to try and pick the pieces up after the show has fallen to pieces, that is up to them. But this Labor government is determined to act decisively to minimise the impacts of what we see unfolding around the world. Certainly, it is the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. In those circumstances, the approach of the opposition, as outlined by the shadow minister, Ms Bishop—that we should wait and see how bad things get—is just plain wrong. That was the approach in the US; they waited to see how bad things were going to get, with the banking system collapsing, and then decided to intervene. They are still trying to work it out in the US.

Credit must go to Senator Obama, now President of the US. We cannot blame the new President. He is still trying to come to grips with and get on top of all of these issues, after eight years of conservative rule under former President Bush, who controlled the congress for six years of his eight years. Look where it got the US. There will still be some apologies for the reckless economic management of the US under the former President. It was reckless: the level of debt, the level of irresponsible lending that occurred, the reckless failure to effectively—