If you think Australia could protect itself if only the right politicians were running the country you have not understood the magnitude of what is happening in Europe.

Tyler Durden of Zerohedge explains in this short article why he expects the unfolding systemic collapse to be global, and not European.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-20/cyprus-atms-low-cash-credit-card-payments-refused-medvedev-compares-europe-ussr

Rhrosty, Robert Le Page and Mac have expressed it very well. The attempt to link the Cyprus crisis with the ALP government here is beyond pathetic.

The causes of the Cyprus crisis are many, including but not limited to, buying Greek government bonds and other high risk investments. But a particular part of the crisis Julie fails to mention is that Cyprus is the largest washing machine in the region, laundering billions of "hot" euros and other currencies, not least from the Russian mafias.

Not a single Cypriot MP voted for the austerity package. That sounds suspiciously like democracy to me when the elected representatives actually responded to hugh public outrage.

The other factor that you fail to mention Julie, is that the Cypriot banks, like other banks in Europe, the UK and the US have been engaged in large scale criminality for at least the past three decades with not a single prosecution. When institutions and their officers become not only "too big to fail" but too big to prosecute (as the US Attorney General said recently) then we are really in trouble as a democracy.

Just gotta agree with Robert, Mac and James.
There simply no substitute for cleared eyed pragmatism, and factual realism/historical knowledge.
Rhrosty.

yes, not much there, again. I am really gettign worried now.

Govt spending Julie is only half the problem.
http://barnabyisright.com/2011/06/27/our-banks-racing-towards-a-bigger-armageddon/ Your own Barnaby Joyce was sounding the alarm about our banks in 2011.Now our banks exposure to worthless derivatives is over $ 19 Trillion or 16 times our GDP.How can we bail them out?

Our Commonwealth Bank for the first time has refused to publish details of their derivative exposure.

We need a Glass Steagall Act Julie to separate the derivative gambling economy from our real assets.Will your party protect the people from these predatory type of activities?

Extremely disappointing article. It commenced with what appeared to be a reasonable analysis of Europe's challenges but finished with a cheap shot based on embedded falsehoods.

The Australian economy was tracking 6th in the world in 1996 after numerous structural reforms from the mid to late 1980s began to take effect. Australia slipped back during the period of poor economic management of the Howard years to 11th.

Now, after five years of Labor and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression Australia is first in the world - by a very long margin.

All the evidence shows that the economic settings Australia's Government has chosen - of which borrowings is just one - have been the right ones for the times.

Yes, the levers are now in different positions: taxes are applied differently, overall taxation is lower, borrowings are higher, capital investment is higher, interest rates are lower, deficit is higher, money supply is only slightly altered.

Those are the inputs.

But on almost every indicator of outcomes - unemployment level, job participation, income per person, productivity, etc. etc. etc. - Australia is better placed now than at any time in its history and better than any nation in the world.

The real message, Julie, is very clear indeed: do not risk Australia's economic future by changing back to the team which has proven its incompetence.