On the road in south west NSW last week, Mr Turnbull acknowledged the economy has performed "better than many people were expecting a year ago" but it was due mainly to the good position the country's finances were left in prior to the last election.

"Now the higher dollar is obviously a challenge for exporters. One of the things that is pressing the higher dollar of course is the prospect of higher interest rates and that is being driven in large measure, not entirely but in large measure, by the reckless spending of the Rudd Government," Mr Turnbull said.

"Let’s not forget this – right at the moment we have the extraordinary situation where the Reserve Bank is saying the economy is getting stronger and they’re obviously concerned about inflation and it getting overheated and so they are sending out warning after warning about the need to pull back on the monetary stimulus; in other words jack up interest rates.

"At the same time we’ve got Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan saying spend, spend, spend. They are not going to take a backward step in terms of their spending.

"Kevin Rudd said we were facing the economic equivalent of a rolling national security crisis; he said we were in an economic cyclone.

"We on the other hand, in the Coalition, were a little bit more balanced… We said we’re in an economic storm, we’ll get wet but we won’t sink."

Mr Turnbull said the Prime Minister should be winding back spending but he refuses to do so.

"So we now have the incredible situation where you’ve got the Reserve Bank with its foot on the brake and the Government, Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan, with their foot on the accelerator. And that’s producing a very uneven recovery."