And in coming to office in 1996, my Treasurer, Peter Costello, established the Wallis Inquiry which conducted something of a stocktake of what had happened post-Campbell and recommended a number of other very significant changes. So, thus you can see that over a twenty year period we have had a long continuity of reform and outward-looking policies in relation to the banking and financial system. And it has borne fruit because the strength and the stability and the progressivity of our banking system is one of the reasons why we are seen as having such economic strength in our region. And one of the ironies of watching how Australia has performed with other nations in the region is to recall some of the thing that were said about our banking practices and our economic practices only a few years ago by some of the nations in our region that seemed to be out performing us economically. There were even suggestions that we were too stodgy, we were too conservative, we were too heavily regulated and some of the prudential requirements were too severe.
Nobody says that anymore.
One of the bull points of the Australian economy is that we have a stable, strong, secure and well and prudentially regulated banking system. And it is a source of strength, it is a source of reassurance and what a few years ago was perhaps seen as stodgy is now seen as one of the reasons that makes Australia an extremely attractive place in which to invest. Now, the lesson in all of that, ladies and gentlemen, is that we can have great reform, we can have beneficial change, we can have a world class structure in this country if necessary reform enjoys strong bipartisan support. It would not have been possible to have the strong banking and financial structure we now have in this country had it not been for the fact that both sides of politics saw the national benefit and the national interest in that area. If one or other side of politics at various stages over the last twenty years had run an emotional, populist campaign against financial deregulation we would not have the benefit of that deregulation which is there for all of us to see.