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

I did not have notice of this question but I am pleased to respond. Frankly, my response to Standard and Poor’s response about the tough new licensing regulations that we are introducing is: tough. Frankly, the performance of credit rating agencies in the context of the US financial crisis was a disgrace and they contributed to the appalling events in the financial system and the economic system—not just in the US but in Europe—that we are all paying the consequence of. It is about time that, where we have important institutions that are making critical assessments of the financial worthiness of particularly exotic and complex financial products, they do it properly—and credit rating agencies did not do it properly. We are going to license them in Australia. We are going to require a compliance report. (Time expired)