In fact in a deregulated forex you can't do much about it. It's just that the economists don't seem to know as much as the politicians do (heaven help us).
Howard has been trying to talk down the dollar for the economy's sake (exports and the farmers vote) while the economists, who are beholden to theories that have all the hallmarks of a religion, are just being doctrinare and generally would like to see it higher.
Of course their religious view allows them to see all sorts of economic reasons to explain the dollar's movements.
From memory the Forex trades about 3 trillion US dollars a day and the little Aussie battler accounts for about one percent of that. So It doesn't take too much speculation to move the AUD.
Of course what the higher dollar gives us is cheaper imports and that reduces inflationary presssures and probably keeps the pollies almost as happy as the economists.
