SYDNEY, March 30, 2009 (AFP) - Australia's central bank has room to cut interest rates further in response to the global financial crisis, Treasurer Wayne Swan said Monday.

He said the Reserve Bank of Australia had "cut the cash rate further and faster, and to a lower level, than in living memory" in taking rates from 7.25 percent to 3.25 percent since September.

"Importantly, however, it has room to cut rates further if necessary - a luxury that many of the world's key central banks no longer have," Swan told a business function in Tokyo in a speech posted on his official website.

Swan said the bank, which sets interest rates independently of government, had helped Australia avoid the worst of the global recession.

"To put it simply, Australia has not suffered the acute financial stresses that many other countries have experienced," he said.

"Fiscal policy and monetary policy have both responded pre-emptively and decisively to cushion the Australian economy from the worst effects of the global crisis."

Swan said the economic stimulus packages adopted by both the Australian and Japanese governments were the correct way to minimise the impact of the crisis.

"Australia's policies have been the right ones for the times," he said. "But domestic actions alone won't solve this crisis. Action must not only be decisive, it must be globally coordinated to achieve success."

He said the G20 meeting in London this week presented an opportunity for the international community to put the global economy on the path to recovery.

"The way forward for that summit is clear - to deal with the problem of toxic assets, to enhance the IMF, to maintain the impetus for fiscal stimulus measures and to resist trade and financial protectionism," he said.