Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has sided with European Union leaders who say they should not be lectured by others on how they handle their economic crisis.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said European leaders need to take decisive action by strengthening and recapitalising of their banks, introducing greater fiscal and banking integration, and getting economic back on track.
Mr Abbott says a government that has delivered the four biggest deficits in Australian history hardly has the credentials to lecture the G20.
"The prime minister would be better advised to actually deliver a surplus as opposed merely to forecast one before she starts giving lectures to other countries on economic and fiscal rectitude," he told the Committee for Economic Development of Australia conference in Canberra on Tuesday.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso vehemently told reporters at the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, that while the union was extremely open and engaging with its G20 partners they were not there to receive lessons from anybody.
"The challenges are not all European. They are global," he said, pointing out that the international economic problems started with a financial crisis in the United States four years ago.
European Union president Herman Van Rompuy agreed, noting that other countries had "huge external imbalances" to correct.
"This crisis in the eurozone will take time to solve, there are no quick fixes, no silver bullets, but we will do all it takes to see it through," he said.
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