Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr President. I accept the point of order. The global credit crunch has pushed up borrowing costs for households and businesses around the world. Global share markets have fallen by an average of around 20 per cent in developed economies since the global turmoil began and consumer confidence across the OECD economies has fallen to its lowest point in almost 30 years. Not surprisingly, these global difficulties are slowing growth across advanced economies.

We recently learnt that the UK economy did not grow at all in the three months to June, while Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Canada have all recorded negative growth in the most recently reported quarters. Japan’s economy contracted by 0.6 per cent, Germany contracted by 0.5 per cent, France contracted by 0.3 per cent, Italy contracted by 0.3 per cent and Canada, in its March quarter, contracted by 0.1 per cent. Australia, as I have said repeatedly, is not immune to these global—