Is this TRUE?

... I was reading an article all about this beastly debt/credit crisis thingy in the SMH this week, and I came across something that fair boggled my mind.
"In some ways we are worse off than even the US, although, overall, we are better off. The single biggest difference has been largely ignored, and that difference is personal responsibility. In the US, when borrowers find their homes are worth less than their mortgages and it makes no sense to them to pour their wages into a black hole, they can simply walk away. The bank forecloses. The borrower walks. The problem is transferred to the bank.
Different story here. Borrowers cannot simply walk. Even when they no longer own the home they still own the debt. So they do not walk. They fight, because they have to. It also helps that we have not had a central bank that kept money too cheap for too long." My emphasis there.
But is this TRUE? Can a person really walk away from their mortgage if they don't fancy paying it anymore? Really? Just walk out and not be pursued by the bank's debt collectors forevermore?
I had been wondering why so many people, who so clearly could not service a mortgage, would go out and get one anyway. (Let's not go into the issue of why a lending institution would actually LEND them money they could never pay back, that hurts my brain like thinking about quantum physics.)
But if this is true, then I can see why a person would. If there is no danger of being lumbered with the debt should you find it all too hard, well, why not have a house for a bit?
High finance, I don't suppose I'll ever understand it.