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

I thank the honourable member for his question. Firstly, on the question of business confidence, business confidence is bad here as it is in practically every other developed economy in the world. If you look at the surveys of business confidence in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Germany and Italy, as produced in the relevant indices, you will see they are all heading downwards, and that is because of the global financial crisis. The global financial crisis has impacted on global financial markets, which have in turn affected equity markets, which have in turn affected property markets, which have in turn affected the real economy and jobs. Businesses looking at these developments around the world have become pessimistic about the possibility of investment and growth.

The key challenge in responding to that is to ensure that, first of all, we maintain the stability of the Australian financial system. The stability of the Australian financial system was underpinned by the two bank guarantees which we delivered about a month ago—and we did so, I understand, with the complete, bipartisan support of the opposition on that occasion, but I am not so sure that that is the case today. It seems to be a case of their agreeing one day and then disagreeing the next—not looking at what the opposition say but in fact what they then do. They say that they are bipartisan but then, if you look at what they do the next day, they seek to undermine that bipartisanship.

These are tough and difficult economic times, but what is required is, firstly and fundamentally, the stability of the Australian financial system; secondly, governments around the world putting their shoulder to the wheel and supporting appropriate fiscal and economic stimulus for the economies; and, thirdly, governments around the world cooperating on a new regulatory arrangement for the financial systems which landed us in this difficulty in the first place. That is very much the charge which this government has taken on. It is a charge which the government will prosecute into the future. There will be difficult times ahead, not just for Australia but for the rest of the world, but we are determined to act and determined to continue to take all necessary action to ensure that we can do everything possible to support positive growth in this economy in the future, when the rest of the world is already experiencing the ravages of global economic recession.

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