Australian investors are hoping this weekend's meeting of the world's richest nations will come up with concrete measures to restore global confidence after the sharemarket dropped off a cliff.
The All Ordinaries share index slumped 8.2 per cent on Friday, its second largest fall on record, wiping some $87 billion off share prices, and a total of $188 billion over the week.
This followed falls of around seven per cent on Wall Street overnight.
The extended plunge comes despite the trillions of dollars being thrown at banking systems around the world and a coordinated round of interest rate cuts by central banks to try and restore normality.
But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described the global response to the crisis as "uncoordinated" and hopes the emergency G20 group of leading economies in Washington will address regulatory challenges.
Closer to home, federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull said the government must take immediate steps to salvage the economy by delaying the start for carbon emissions trading, expand a proposed deposit guarantee scheme and invest more heavily in mortgage securities than planned.
Mr Rudd, however, said restoring global confidence was the key challenge.
"There has been a series of, at best, uncoordinated actions by various national governments on this and this has not created an overall image of international government consistency on these questions," Mr Rudd told ABC Radio.
"Overall, what we face is a broader problem of a lack of a demonstration of global and coordinated political will to deal with some of the big regulatory challenges that we now face.
"And that, I believe, is a key part of the confidence equation and that must be addressed as the finance ministers meet in Washington this weekend."
Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan said coordinated action across a range of areas was needed, not just interest rates.
Mr Swan is in the United States for the G20 gathering as well as the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
"To date, the global solution has been in the hands of the G7 and the G7 does not necessarily include any of the developing countries around the world that are very important to the future of the world economy", he told ABC Radio.
"So, broadening out this discussion to the G20 is really important because the G20, I think, working with the IMF, can help put in place the architecture that is essential to ensure that these events don't happen again."
Mr Swan is using his trip to press Australia's proposals to reform regulatory systems and meet financial market participants from major Wall Street institutions.
"As I've met with people from the banking sector this morning and other people involved with this crisis, the lack of confidence is not encouraging people to lend," he said.
"What that is doing is putting a real credit crunch in place which is stopping activity, or restricting activity, in the real economy."
Mr Turnbull, meanwhile, laid out a three-point plan to salvage the Australian economy.
He said the government must drop the 2010 starting date for the carbon emissions trading scheme and wait until after next year's global climate change conference in Copenhagen before designing the plan.
It should also expand a proposed government-backed deposit guarantee scheme to cover savings of up to at least $100,000 per depositor - up from the planned amount of $20,000.
He also wants investment in AAA-rated Residential Mortgage Backed Securities to be raised to at least $10 billion, more than double the government's proposed $4 billion investment, to boost confidence in the local housing market.
"We are dealing with great economic changes, and they call for leadership and they call for action and they call for decisions," Mr Turnbull said.