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

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question and note in passing that Professor McKibbin has not been a consistent fan of government policy for some time—either on the question of the economy, climate change or a range of other matters. That is simply a matter of public record. The Leader of the Opposition asked me about the government’s stimulus strategy. In my response to an earlier question today I referred to it being 12 months since the Lehman Brothers crisis and to what the global economy has done through the G20—and what we are still seeking to do through the G20—because the global economy was at the abyss. One of the things that the global economy resolved to do through the G20 was coordinate global economic stimulus through fiscal measures. That is what was agreed upon at the London summit in March-April this year.

Furthermore, the representatives of those G20 economies, meeting most recently in London last weekend—and I seem to recall the Treasurer informing the House about this last week—including all those socialists from France, Germany, Italy and from Saudi Arabia, all said that in fact they were committed and must remain committed to the full implementation of the stimulus measures that they had agreed upon in London. And the reason for that was that the global economic recovery was far from certain and far from concluded. Therefore Australia, together with the other 19 significant economies at that gathering, as they were in London in April, has embarked upon this collective course of action.

Also, within Australia we have acted on the basis of advice from the Treasury. We have acted on the basis also of the concerted—

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