The association's chief executive, Adrian Beresford-Wylie, said councils had a $14.5billion backlog in infrastructure renewal work, and mayors wanted the Government to produce a four-year $1billion package to deal with that.

Today’s meeting brings together more than 400 of Australia’s 565 mayors and shire presidents for the first time with federal, state and territory ministers and is designed to build stronger links between the three tiers of government.

There will also be discussion about formal constitutional recognition for councils, perhaps in a preamble. With Mr Rudd returning from the G20 summit, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner said the summit’s outcomes were ‘‘enormously important’’.

‘‘The commitment by all the countries involved to regulatory reform and to report back on reform within about six months is very significant and equally the commitment not to increase any trade barriers, not to lapse into protectionism, is enormously important for the world economy and, inevitably, for Australia,’’ he said.

Opposition finance spokesman Joe Hockey said it had failed to deliver an ‘‘immediate stimulus’’ to the global economy. ‘‘We hope as an Opposition, that out of the G20 meeting over the weekend, that governments will continue to focus on their economies,’’ he said. ‘‘And domestically, Kevin Rudd needs to focus on getting credit card rates down of their highs of over 19 per cent, small business lending and borrowing rates down from exorbitant levels that they’re still at.’’

The $300 million package comes after the $10.4 billion stimulus package, and the $6.2 billion rescue plan for the car industry.

The Government is also leaving open the option of another big stimulus package, although Mr Tanner said yesterday he did not believe it would be needed. ‘‘I certainly hope there won’t be a need for further major stimulatory action but we can’t rule that out because we are not clear about exactly how bad the recession internationally is going to end up being,’’ he said.