Australian Financial Governance: The Power of The Australian Financial Industry Over Public Policy-Making In The Lead-Up To The Global Financial Crisis

Abstract

The recent Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has once again highlighted the significance of finance and the financial industry to modern economies, the societies they affect and the ability of governments to make autonomous policy decisions. In general, the blame for this crisis is argued to be upon the ‘new financial architecture’ of modern finance, which was ushered in by the large financial firms and their disproportionate influence over government. The paradox of the Australian experience however, is that despite its financial system being firmly embedded in this ‘new financial architecture’, its regulatory framework is generally considered to have eased Australia’s passage through the crisis. Therefore, this thesis seeks to analyse how such a regulatory framework has come into existence and more importantly, whether the Australian financial industry was important in that process. To do so, this thesis will employ the ‘three faces of power’ conceptual framework to existing and original theoretical and empirical evidence so as to better understand the nature of discursive, structural and instrumental power in Australian financial governance. From this analysis one can infer that while finance as an ideal has significant power over the policy-making agenda of government, individual financial actors encounter sufficient structural and institutional checks and balances so as to be on a relatively equal playing field to other politically interested actors.