Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

What puzzles me about the opposition’s attack on this is, first of all, that they have given bipartisan support for this package and within 24 hours there is no longer bipartisan support for this package. We have an opposition determined to engage in short-term partisan politics rather than participate in a long-term economic security strategy for the nation. I draw the Leader of the Liberal Party’s attention to the following facts. The first goes to the growth numbers for the Australian economy, which I have referred to before. The second is the real information contained in the IMF’s most recent report on both the global economy and on the developed economies within that. The October IMF report points to a downward revision in the growth projections for 2009 of about one per cent for the global economy. Secondly, it goes to a further revision downwards by about one per cent for the advanced economies. In the case of the global economies, what you had was the fourth downward revision within a year and in the case of the advanced economies a revision down to growth which is practically zero, which would see across the advanced economies a level of growth lower than we have seen for the last 25 years. That is the first set of factors which galvanised the government’s attention.

The second is this: what has happened with growth in the Chinese economy as well? Revisions downward in the Chinese economy in terms of their growth—

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