Rudd didn't save us from GFC, Abbott says August 9, 2013 - 12:15PM Opposition Leader Tony Abbott believes it was governments of the past 25 years that saved Australia from the global financial crisis (GFC), not Kevin Rudd. Mr Abbott said the prime minister liked to boast he had saved the country from the 2008-2009 crisis which led many industrialised nations - bar Australia - into recession. "Mr Rudd did not save Australia from the global financial crisis," he told reporters in Brisbane on Friday. What saved Australia from the global financial crisis was good economic management over the previous 25 years, sensible economic reform over the previous 25 years. Mr Rudd had "done his best to kill" the China boom with bad policies like carbon pricing and the mining tax. The Liberal leader said the campaign up to the September 7 election was about delivering Australians "a better life," not a political survival strategy. The departments of Treasury and Finance will on Tuesday release a Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook (PEFO) on the state of the budget and the economy. Mr Abbott said the coalition would be working off the figures but said previous forecasts had turned out to be wrong. This government has got all of its figures wrong. It's never got a figure right, never got a forecast right," he said. The best estimate going will be PEFO. Hopefully it will be more accurate than previous figures and we'll obviously be working off the PEFO figures. The coalition's "budget bottom line" would be there for everyone to see and would be better than Labor's. "All of our policies will be costed and funded and you will be able to see the net outcome in good time before the election," Mr Abbott added.