"Looking back in time, Australian banks collapsed in almost every decade of the 19th century.  In 1893 after the failure of fraudulent land banks in Victoria triggered a wholesale run on banks. In the space of six weeks, 12 banks closed their doors. Those banks accounted for two-thirds of the total banking assets in Australia.  That crisis increased pressure - which had been building for some time - for the formation of a central bank. The Commonwealth Bank was formed by the Federal Government in 1911 to issue notes which would be backed by the resources of the nation.  Banking became more tightly controlled during World War II, with the central bank dictating overdraft rates and, later, statutory reserve deposit ratios and liquid asset ratios.  To avoid a patent conflict of interest, the Commonwealth Bank's 'central banking powers' were transferred to the newly formed Reserve Bank of Australia in 1959."

Below is an extract from Consumer Affairs Victoria -  Regulating the cost of credit (Chapter 5) which evidences that in the earlier history of Australian interest rates if de-regulation did not achieve the desired results, then re-regulation followed:

"The tide of utilitarianism rose slowly, and a lengthy campaign was necessary before the financial deregulation of 1854, which abolished the British interest rate cap.  However, one act of deregulation cannot quell an argument that has been going on for millennia.  Over the following century the tide gradually turned towards re-regulation, culminating with detailed requirements imposed on the financial sector (particularly the banks) during and immediately after the Second World War."