Extend help to those in need: Rudd

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants Australians to lend a hand to those in need as the
world financial crisis bites.
Speaking at an Australia Day reception at Government House in Melbourne on Thursday
evening, Mr Rudd said 2009 would contain "extraordinary challenges".
"I have great confidence in our people to exhibit a resilience, a steeliness, a calm
and resolve, which together with an appropriately formed policy, will see Australia
through.
"This crisis will be a test of who we are as a people, who we are as a community and
who we are as neighbours, because many will be hurt by it," Mr Rudd said.
He promised the government would support those who need help.
"But at a different level, at a very personal level ... it is important that each of
us takes on the responsibility of extending the hand of friendship when those that
suffer from this crisis experience that suffering."
More than 1,000 people gathered in the grand ballroom of Government House, in the
heart of Melbourne's Kings Domain, to celebrate the coming of Australia Day on
January 26.
Mr Rudd also said science should be the focus of Australia's education system, and
that he hoped to help form a "new cadre" of young scientists to further the cause of
science in Australia.