Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

It does not matter who put it there. It may have been the catalyst for the breakdown we have seen in the financial sector. The coalition ensured that Australian banks were well capitalised, they were highly profitable and they were well regulated. Major reforms of the finance sector by the coalition about 10 years ago ensured that Australian banks did not engage to the same extent in the types of risky lending practices that occurred in the United States. So this government has a lot to be thankful for with respect to the efforts of the past government, the Howard government, in putting all of that regulation in place.

When you think back to the position that this government were left with in November 2007, when they won government, this government ought to pay some consideration to what they are doing to Australia by plunging us so unnecessarily into such debt. One knows that when times are tough there sometimes is a need to go into debt—but it is about the size of the debt, the size of the package; it is about the way the priorities have been put in place for the spending of money in this package. There is nothing for public transport. To the best of my knowledge, there is actually no cash in this package for self-funded retirees, who are suffering terribly.