Australian PM urges U.S. lawmakers to pass Wall Street rescue plan

CANBERRA, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he and other world leaders must continue to argue the case for U.S. legislators to approve a 700 billion U.S. dollars (882.7 billion Australian dollars) bailout of Wall Street.

The U.S. Senate is poised to vote on a revised rescue package for Wall Street, after the House of Representatives earlier in the week sparked economic turmoil by rejecting the original plan.

Rudd said that like his counterparts from Britain and Japan, he believed it was crucial for the world economy that the rescue package would be passed.

"Both the attitude of the government of Japan and the government of the United Kingdom is that this is actually crucial to the stability of the global financial system, not just the financial system of the United States," he told ABC Television.

Rudd, who spoke to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso earlier Wednesday, said that "allof America's friends and allies were of the same mind".

"Certainly, when I spoke to Taro Aso just a short time ago that was his determination," he said.