All this is well and good but why isn’t there mention of the fact that Tony Abbott pulled ASICS teeth and cut $120 mill off their budget and cost 200 jobs? ASIC’s under performance is now being used by the banks and it’s conservative supporters. (ODT)

Former Treasurer Wayne Swan did a lot of good things for the Australian economy, including having the nous to prime the pump when the GFC – brought on (arguably) by the very securitisation process Medcraft had pioneered – threatened to derail the lot of us. Swan and former Prime Minister Rudd saved us from a recession — no doubt about it.

But Swan could also, on occasion, be as far-sighted as a fruit bat. And putting Medcraft in charge of ASIC in 2011 was about as batty as the night sky above Gotham City. I am struggling for a fox/henhouse metaphor here — maybe the bat and the mango tree? You get the point.

Medcraft presided over a bloated, generously-funded ASIC, only too happy to pretend to be the “tough cop on the beat” when, in truth, it was no more than a limp toady, smitten by the big swinging dicks at the banks.

via ASIC, the AEC, James Ashby’s One Nation aircraft and other drop bears