UN General Assembly
2009

institutions of global governance, and a wake-up call that our system of global governance today is in need of radical reform. Because the truth is that the failure of these institutions is not just a matter of concern for Governments and for diplomats and for economists; the price of the failure of these institutions has been paid by working people and their families right across the world. The events on Wall Street spread rapidly and indiscriminately to every corner of the globe, from London to Lima, from Beijing to Barcelona, from Melbourne to Mumbai, to developed and developing economies. This global financial crisis and its ensuing economic and employment crisis has been no respecter of national boundaries, and no respecter of peoples. Australia has been no exception. The global financial crisis saw the Australian stock market fall by 55 per cent. It wiped around A$ 150 billion from the retirement savings of Australian workers. And it led to tens of thousands of Australians losing their jobs. We expect more job losses to follow. Behind each of these