Australia leads world in beating downturn
By Phillip Coorey Chief Political Correspondent | smh.com.au | 17 September
The Rudd Government's handling of the global economic crisis has been given a double boost, with the OECD singling out its stimulus package for praise and a global poll showing Australians are among the most satisfied with the official response.
The Government seized on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report as it faced a concerted and growing campaign from the Coalition that the stimulus package was a waste of money and should be withdrawn.
The OECD's 2009 employment outlook, released last night, says the large fiscal stimulus packages many nations implemented "generally have not had a strong effect in cushioning the initial decline in employment caused by the crisis, although Australia is a notable exception".
"The jobs impact of fiscal stimulus measures is particularly strong in Australia, Japan and the United States," it says.
It estimates employment will be boosted by between 1.4 per cent and 1.9 per cent in Australia by 2010 as a result. It said Australia's stimulus package, as a proportion of GDP, was the third largest, at 5.4 per cent, coming behind Korea and the US.
The report also says 15 million people have lost their jobs across the OECD since the end of 2007 and the average unemployment rate within the OECD will hit 10 per cent by the end of 2010.
The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said that as welcome as the findings were, the warning unemployment would still rise was why "we need to stick to our guns on stimulus to keep as many Australian in work as possible."
The poll, by the international polling firm GlobeScan, together with the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, was conducted for the BBC World Service and surveyed 22,158 people across 20 countries.
Australians were the most satisfied with their government's response with 68 per cent signalling their approval, followed by Egyptians (63 per cent), Brazil (59 per cent), Canada (57 per cent) and Indonesia (57 per cent).
The average across the 20 countries was 44 per cent. In Parliament, the Opposition attempted to censure the Education Minister, Julia Gillard, over the controversial projects which have sprung from the $16.2 billion school building program.
The Coalition believes buildings that schools neither needed nor wanted are an indicator of wasteful and unnecessary spending.
The Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, also cited the head of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, as saying "the recession is very likely over at this point" as reason for the Government "to cut back its wasteful stimulus spending to reduce upward pressure on interest rates".
Mr Swan said the global outlook remained weak and not even Mr Bernanke was advocating the withdrawal of stimulus. The Government attacked Joe Hockey after he said the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was winding back fiscal stimulus measures.
Mr Brown did say his Government would cut back inefficiencies, unnecessary programs and lower-priority budgets but he stressed the need to "implement fiscal stimulus packages in full without stopping them prematurely".
First published by Smh.com.au on September 17 2009
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