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

I have responses to a couple of earlier questions from Senator Joyce and from Senator Macdonald. Before I give those, I would like to say in response to the contribution from Senator Fielding: I do not sit in your place but I do appreciate your passion and your concerns and the difficulty in making decisions of such magnitude. I do understand that. I have not sat in your place but I do have at least some appreciation of the difficulties these issues present.

If I could just relate a personal experience, I did not live through the Great Depression; my father lived through it. He was an orphan. He lived on cabbages, vegemite sandwiches and rabbits when they were cheap, and he would go out and catch them wild. I did get a lot of stories from my father about those times in the 1920s and 1930s and at times when I was a young kid I thought it was a bit of a lecture about these types of issues. I am not suggesting the world faces a Great Depression, but I do understand, at least related to me by my father, the experiences he went through in the Great Depression. They were very, very tough circumstances, tougher than many others.

I think it is fair for me to observe, Senator Joyce, that when we were elected to government I was very proud to be a new minister. Looking back over the last year, I certainly did not believe a year ago that we would have faced the financial systems firestorm that has erupted all around the world and the sheer number and complexity of issues that I have had to deal with in my particular responsibilities—issues I never expected I would have to consider—because of the way the world financial system in many other countries has collapsed, with the obvious impact on Australia. Now we have to deal with the economic consequences of it, and they are serious. Again as a personal reflection, I would not have thought debates around things like short selling, for example, would have become some sort of mainstream general economic debate. Who would have believed it? There is a whole range of issues. Senator Macdonald has referred to the Storm matters. Whilst I strongly believe that financial regulation should be a national issue, I did not anticipate a year ago, in moving to improve the regulatory oversight of margin lending, just how important that issue would become in the context of Storm and other difficulties we have seen for thousands of Australians.

We all bear the weight on our shoulders now, given what is occurring around the world and its impact. I think we all bear it quite sincerely, and I certainly appreciate the sincerity with which you bring your perspective. The government has put together a very significant package, given the weight of global recession and the emerging events just in the last three months—the pace at which countries have been going into much greater recessions than had been believed possible; the continuing reassessment by, for example, the International Monetary Fund; the impact on a country like China and then the impact on Australia. I sincerely believe, Senator Joyce, that the government has put together a strong package that will assist. But you were right to remind us—