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

It was that as well, Senator Abetz. This was the attitude of conservatives during the Great Depression: wait and see, do nothing, the market will sort it out. That is how we got into the Great Depression. I did not live through the Great Depression but I certainly heard enough stories. I certainly heard the lectures from my father about the outcome of the Great Depression.

This is a decisive and strong Labor government that believes in intervening when markets fail—as they clearly have in the United States and Europe—when the financial systems face collapse, when the economies of most comparable countries go into recession and when the China boom ends. With all of this, you cannot shut the curtains and ignore it; you have got to act strongly and decisively to underpin the Australian economy and employment, and that is what this package does.