schoolwatch, page-3

The Howard/Costello team look better as each days goes. Whilst many laborites would call the booming economy for 11 years luck, appears the luck has run out. What a coincidence.

And schoolboy Rudd whose Labor party opposed everything in the Liberals term now want to take their bat and ball and go home if the they are not supported in the Senate.

Can SKS please tell me one item Rudd has set a target that can be measured prior to the next election? Even in the next decade would be good!!!!!!!

Turnbull blames Govt for consumer confidence drop

The Federal Opposition wants the Government to take responsibility for a slump in Australian consumer confidence.

The latest AC Neilsen Consumer Confidence Index shows Australian consumer confidence dropped 11 points, well above the average global drop of 5.5 points.

The Opposition's Treasury spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, has raised the figures in Federal Parliament.

"I refer to the latest AC Neilsen Global Consumer Confidence Index, which found the collapse in consumer confidence in Australia has been twice as severe as that in the rest of the world," he said.

"When will the Prime Minister take any responsibility for this dramatic decline in consumer confidence?"

And Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson blames nine months of Labor for the slowing economy.

"Why are Australians worse off since the election of the Rudd Government and does the Prime Minister take any responsibility for it?" he said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the Opposition needs to stop blocking key Budget measures that are designed to secure Australia's economic future.

"I would again challenge those opposite as they contemplate their mission of economic vandalism in the Senate to instead join with the Government in a strategy of responsible economic management to make sure that we - through fiscal policy - maintain the integrity of the Budget surplus in order to provide Australia with a decent economic buffer in the uncertain global economic times that we face," he said.

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says the Coalition is hindering the Government's economic strategy by blocking the Budget measures.

"I would call on the Opposition to abandon its short term sniping and mindless populist politics," he said.

The Government says the Opposition's tactics could rip billions from the Budget surplus.