Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan is confident that Australia is well positioned to weather the lingering financial storms worldwide, mainly in the eurozone, which today ate up some $23 billion from the local share market.

Prior to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) hitting its lowest level in the past six months, this morning, Mr Swan declared in an interview with ABC that Australians should be comforted by economic facts that would shore up its standing amidst the existing global challenges.

"We've got solid growth, we've got low unemployment, we've got a healthy financial system, we've got strong public finances and we've got a huge investment pipeline," the deputy prime minister said.

He added that with the Reserve Bank's cash rate of 3.75 per cent, handed down in May, and inlation levels that are manageable, "we face these challenges from a position of strength."

Yet, the treasurer had acknowledged that the European affair must keep the country's economic managers on a constant alert mode, adding that in the event of another troubling dip in the region, "we have already factored in ... contraction in Europe of 0.75 per cent."

The country's domestic settings, Mr Swan said, have been adopted with full consideration that the Euro zone will have "a long and painful period of adjustment."

"It true that the global economy does require some decisive action in Europe," the treasurer was reported by the Australian Associated Press (AAP) as saying on Monday.

In the months to come, economists said that global economies should brace for the repercussions that will attend the deepening credit crunch in Europe but Mr Swan insisted that Australia should be less worried.

"We should never lose sight of how strong our economic fundamentals are, we should never lose sight of the fact that we face these challenges from a position of strength," The Australian quoted Mr Swan as saying.

However, Opposition leader Tony Abbott warned that apart from the problems besetting key economies around the world, Australians should be worried more because we have "the most incompetent government in our history trying to administer the most complex tax in our history."

No thanks to Labor's carbon pricing, Australia, Mr Abbott told The Australian, has entered an economic setting that is "very perilous."

It's because the Gillard Government, he added, "chooses to damage Australia's competitiveness and to damage Australia's productivity with the world's biggest carbon tax."

Also, Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey contradicted Mr Swan's claims that under the Labor government, Australian households relish lower interest rates as against to the rates in effect when the Coalition held the federal government.

In a statement, Mr Hockey said that former Prime Minister John Howard had presided over an economic environment that saw the variable mortgage rate reaching a high of only 7.26 per cent as against to Labor's 7.5 per cent.

"On average, effective interest rates paid by home owners and small business borrowers were lower under the coalition government than they have been under Labor," Mr Swan's Coalition counterpart said.