Over the past decade we've had to put up with Howard giving unrestricted power to banks and businesses.  Easy credit, unsecured loans, massive salary packages to executives and no accountability whatsoever to clients or the government.  

We've seen the result of this globally and here in Australia many of us really feeling the pinch.  Kevin Rudd appears powerless and instead of introducing some regulations - he's requested the multinationals do the "right thing".  What is even more galling is our "future fund".  I believed there was more (according to the coalition) - but $60 billion was invested a couple of years ago - there is now only $49 billion left and Rudd is talking about investing another $40 billion this year.

Where did this $40 billion come from and why is it being invested overseas and in private equity corporations.  The board managing the fund made special clauses to specify that these funds were NOT TO BE invested in Australian infrastructure and services.

Have we got a bunch of incompetent, uncaring politicians running our country - or are they working for a higher global order?   Nothing appears to be in our "best interest" any longer and Australia is heading quickly down the slippery slope to become a third world country.

It makes sense to invest it overseas. Otherwise you are putting all your eggs in one basket. Plenty of oversease people invest in Australia, so it's not like we are short on capital. This future fund will be most important if our local market runs into trouble, in which case overseas investments will be far more valuable.

To answer the more general question, yes there are many circumstances where interference is justified. An introduction to microeconomics, market forces, supply and demand etc will list several assumptions. Under those assumptions, a free market will be the best option for providing our needs. Where reality falls short of those assumptions, interference may be justified. Some of the assumptions:

Buyers and sellers are well informed, for example about what others in the market are doing.

There are many buyers and sellers, so that no individual participant and no individual transaction can significnatly affect the market (ie, no monopolies, oligopolies etc).

Transaction costs are not significant, and participants can not hold others 'to ransom' - this is the case for building roads, airports etc where one person can hold out and refuse to sell their land, bringing a major project to it's knees.

All people that are affected by the transaction are involved in it - that is, there are no 'externalities'. These last two points cover pollution, where the millions of people that suffer the negative consequences cannot involve themselves in every transaction that elads to pollution.

Most intro to microeconomics textbooks will have a full list of the assumptions. One final point is that for many services, such as education or healthcare, people consider it unethical to leave others at the mercy of the free market.

All investments are a gamble.

Yes so why are we gambling so much? 

Because the odds are in our favour. Putting the money into schools is also a form of investment.

I think some of the international markets could have been considered free. Like the market in slaves, or the market for gold (before central banks). Pre-currency markets were also largely unregulated.