The Reserve Bank of Australia has offered its early-2000s efforts at slowing housing prices as an example of how future asset bubbles might be "leant against".A new RBA discussion paper suggests that the RBA considers its 2002-2004 actions to be at least a modestly successful example of "leaning against a bubble".It also suggests the experience of the past decade has increased the RBA's determination to avoid pushing rates too low and encouraging asset price bubbles.The RBA paper makes an argument to global policymakers for a policy that neither relies heavily on higher interest rates, nor relies entirely on "macroprudential tools" such as the countercyclical buffer proposed under the new Basel III rules.The paper says the RBA conducted a "public awareness campaign" between 2002 and 2004 to highlight the risks of higher housing prices and greater home borrowing. It charts the increase in public statements by the RBA, referred to as "open mouth operations" - a play on central banks' more traditional "open market operations". It says that rate rises in 2002 and 2003, while reflecting broader economic developments, also leant against the bubble. In addition, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority raised concerns with the banks and stress-tested their housing loan portfolios, and actions were taken against get-rich-quick scheme promoters such as Henry Kaye.Leaning against future imbalances "would require, at a minimum, avoiding periods of unnecessarily low interest rates", the paper says.The paper takes aim at former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan's approach to asset prices. It says that Greenspan's favoured approach of "cleaning up the mess" after an asset price bubble can be costly, and that "this strengthens the case for taking earlier action in order to avoid a damaging correction later on". And it contrasts the Australian experience with Greenspan's claim that "there are no examples, to my knowledge, of a successful incremental defusing of a bubble that left prosperity intact"."The early shake-out of the housing market may be one reason why the Australian housing market and financial system were relatively well placed to weather the global financial crisis," the paper says.But the paper also candidly admits that it is hard to see what has driven Australian housing prices, and the extent to which the RBA's actions stopped prices rising further.