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

It is true. Everyone makes spelling mistakes. However, making a spelling mistake on fiscal stimulus is one thing. Having profound misjudgement on fiscal stimulus is something else, and those opposite, led by the Leader of the Opposition, have shown profound misjudgement on fiscal stimulus.

Every single mainstream economic commentator in the country—everyone from the peak industry organisations, to the major public economists, to those responsible for the treasuries and the central banks of the G20 economies through to our own Treasury and our own central bank—has argued that this is the right course of policy action—except for one single organisation, tattered and swinging in the breeze though it is. That organisation is the Liberal and National Party coalition of Australia. They alone believe that they have a script for the economic future. They alone believe that it was wrong to use stimulus in response to the worst global economic challenge since the Great Depression. They now argue that the rug should be pulled out from under recovery now that we have achieved some results from the stimulus we have injected. I say to the Leader of the Opposition and to those opposite: reflect honestly and impartially on the economic data which is before us and, for the first time in the period that he has been Leader of the Opposition, start talking the Australian economy up rather than continuing to talk to the Australian economy down.

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