CANBERRA, Aug. 27 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said here on Wednesday as prime minister of the country he accepted responsibility for good news and bad news, and would continue to do so in the future.
The comments followed the release earlier in the day of figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showing a fall in the volume of construction work done in the June quarter.
The volume of construction work, after adjustment for price changes and regular seasonality, fell by 2.6 per cent in the quarter, the ABS said.
Rudd said the fall in confidence was due to global factors, such as the credit crisis, which were continuing to wash through the economy.
But he also took the opportunity to take a swipe at the opposition, saying the lack of consumer confidence also stemmed from the poor economic management of the Howard government.
He said that when Labor took office inflation was running at 16-year highs and Australia had the second highest interest rates in the developed world.
Opposition treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said it was Rudd who should assume responsibility for the decline.
"Mr Rudd says he takes full responsibility but in the very next breath blames someone else," he said.
"This represents a failure of economic leadership from Mr Rudd at a time when Australia requires real leadership," he said.
