Why Australia's Housing Market Bubbled On

``... in Australia, the rate of change of mortgage debt never went negative and deliberate government policy played a major role in stopping that from happening on two separate occasions: The Rudd stimulus package in October 2008 and the reversal of the RBA's "fight the inflation bogeyman" policy of rising interest rates in November 2011. Both policies allowed -- and indeed encouraged -- mortgage growth to continue long after it would have stopped without government intervention, and long after it did stop in most of the rest of the First World.''