Rudd's AAA excuse is XXX Former Treasurer Peter Costello nails the spendthrift's excuse: Kevin Rudd has used Australia's AAA credit rating as a defence against criticism of the budget deficit blowout to $30 billion last Friday and the breaching of the $300bn debt level. Announcing the September 7 election on Sunday, the Prime Minister deflected questions about the drastic reshaping of the May budget forecasts on rising debt, deficit and unemployment by asking: "If there is a debt and deficit crisis requiring an immediate return to surplus, why did the credit rating agencies provide us with an AAA credit rating?.." Yesterday, Mr Costello said ... There was no net debt when he was elected. His starting point was incredibly strong. If he had inherited a position like President (Barack) Obama did or Prime Minister (David) Cameron did in the US and the UK, we would be where they are today. Since Labor was elected in 2007, the deterioration in the debt position has been very severe - worse than the US and the UK. The journey has been terrible. What saved us was the starting point. If the journey continues in the way it has over the last five years, Australia will be at risk again. More fears that Labor and to some extent the Liberals are fiddling while the Budget burns: Former Future Fund chairman and Commonwealth Bank chief executive David Murray said ... If the structure of the economy is deteriorating while the rating is strong, then you can be certain the rating will be called into question in the future... Commonwealth Bank director and former AMP chief executive Andrew Mohl attacked politicians because ... "current tinkering is doing nothing but creating uncertainty..." "The chance of the structural deficit being addressed in this election campaign is zero," he said. I have no doubt the budget policy over the past five years, given the resources boom, has been too loose. There has been wasteful expenditure, policy formulation has been dysfunctional. If we face a fiscal shock, the economy is more vulnerable than it was. We have spent our ammunition and we don't have much to show for it. The comments come after the government on Friday revealed a $33.3 billion revenue writedown in barely 10 weeks - a situation that Brambles and BlueScope chairman Graham Kraehe described yesterday as "incredible." "My fundamental view is that economic policy at the moment is absolutely ad hoc from day to day without any long-term cohesive, integrated plan," said Mr Kraehe, who is also a former Reserve Bank board member. We have a history of increasing government spending throughout the resources boom and now that the resources boom is tapering off, there is no suggestion that we are planning to reduce government spending, instead of which we are just increasing taxes... Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott said there had been "no structural reform to the budget" and the statement was "worse than a patch-up job; it's a complete misreading of the economy."