And here is evidence to the contrary:
Thank God (whichever one you want) that Howard & Costello got booted out in 2007! A PM with one of the very poorest of records as Treasurer and a lazy know-nothing as then current Treasurer would have totally BUGGERED UP the response to the GFC. They managed to bugger up the boom so what they would have done in the worst downturn since the Great Depression is something too scary to contemplate (if you want to contemplate it for some reason
"A bullet Australia dodged" thread will show you what I think would have happened.
Now, I am not saying Rudd & Swan are perfect BUT they took note of what they were told when in the US early '08. They LISTENED to their advisors--Henry and Stevens etc and had the stones to take fast, big, early action. because of that we now see:
Quote:Jobs surge stuns forecasters
More than 50,000 new jobs were created in January
The Australian labour market has stunned economists for a third straight month, with more than 50,000 new jobs created in January.
The official ABS survey showed a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 5.3 per cent, with 52,700 more people employed, although only 15,900 of those extra jobs were full-time.
The consensus economist forecast had been for a small up tick in the unemployment rate to 5.6 per cent, despite the predicted creation of 15,000 jobs.
20,000 more jobs were created than even the most optimistic forecast among 21 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
The last two months' unemployment figures also surprised economists with a much larger than expected number of jobs created, forcing the unemployment rate down to 5.5 per cent in December.
That lead many analysts to predict that unemployment had peaked in 2009 at 5.8 per cent.
If Howard and Costello had won the 2007 election we would be wistfully looking at successful economies like the Greek, Italian, Spanish and Irish ones!
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