Government meets business

The federal government wants to hear what actions, apart from its $10.4 billion economic stimulus package, business leaders believe are necessary to help Australia weather the global financial crisis.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will meet business leaders in Sydney on Friday.
"It's very important to hear directly from the business community on the ground about what's going on and about what further actions may be necessary in the future," Mr Rudd told Sky News.
"Canberra is not the ultimate repository of all wisdom.
"So we'll be out and about talking with the business community and the general community over what's still going to be a very, very tough time ahead."
Some of Australia's biggest companies will be represented at the round table.
Bosses from miners BHP and Xstrata, accounting firms DeLoittes and Ernst & Young, American Express , property group Leighton Holdings, IBM and Microsoft and News Ltd are expected to attend.
Meanwhile, Mr Rudd has likened the world financial crisis to a "cancer" which has spread to the Australian economy.
He also defended the government's decision to implement a $10.4 billion economic stimulus package ahead of official data to be released next month revealing the strength of the local economy.
Mr Rudd said financial institutions had spread around the risk of "dodgy loans" made in the US.
"When the original mortgage payments couldn't be made, the cancer didn't just stay local, it spread across the world to all the other institutions that had been wrapped up in it," he told Sky News on Friday.
The crisis was now affecting the real Australian economy.
Mr Rudd is resisting calls from the opposition for the release of Treasury advice the government received in developing its stimulus package.
Updates would be included in the mid-year economic forecasts, due for release next month, he said.
But the government could not wait for "final, conclusive proof of economic problems" before taking action, Mr Rudd said.
"Guess what, by then it's too late, you need to act decisively and early because it takes some time for these stimulus measures to flow through to the economy."
"The logic of the Liberal Party's position is this, they would say that you should wait until basically the car starts to sputter through lack of petrol in the tank before you put more petrol in."
When pressed about what the government was doing to help self-funded retirees weather the financial crisis, Mr Rudd said the government was maintaining the stability of the financial system.
Guaranteeing bank deposits would help them, he said.
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says, many small businesses have not seen any benefit from the recent cut in interest rates, even though the federal government is prepared to risk billions supporting the banks.
Only one bank had passed on fully this month's one percentage point rate cut to small business, a sector of the economy that employs most Australians, he said.
"So ( Prime Minister Kevin) Rudd is providing deposit guarantees to help the banks, he's providing wholesale term funding guarantees, which by the way puts the taxpayer potentially on the hook for many billions of dollars," Mr Turnbull told Sky News on Friday.
"So he's doing all that for the banks, and he's spending $10 billion in stimulus, but the stimulus of the interest rate cut is not yet apparently finding its way in that part of the economy where most Australians are employed."
Mr Turnbull is continuing to press the government to reveal what advice it used to formulate its $10.4 billion economics stimulus package announced and what impact it would have on interest rates.
"They're the one's sitting around the table with Treasury, what has Treasury told them, everyone is entitled to know," he said.