There are several elements. First, the Australian banking system went into the crisis in reasonable shape. To be sure, there were some poor lending decisions during the preceding period of easy credit and there was, in hindsight, too much reliance on wholesale funding. But among major institutions, credit quality issues have turned out to be manageable.
Asset quality was not as good among some of the regional banks, and even less so among some foreign banks operating in Australia, but the problems have not been insurmountable. Some observers might counter that the banks received assistance with wholesale fund raising in the form of the government guarantee.