NEW YORK: Kevin Rudd wants a radical overhaul of the bodies that set policy in the global economy - and in an unusually frank address, he calls for the US President, Barack Obama, to step up and drive the changes.

In a major speech he was to give at the Foreign Policy Association at the Waldorf Astoria overnight, the the Prime Minister made a studied but trenchant criticism of the US's role in global regulation over the past 65 years, effectively accusing the most powerful nation of dropping the ball when it comes to keeping pace with global changes.

Mr Rudd's speech said that since the Bretton-Woods agreement - struck in 1944 to cover global banking - the US had gone missing in playing a leadership role in forging relevant and responsive economic forums for dealing with global issues.

That failure had become apparent during the financial crisis and it was time for the US to lift its game, the speech said. ''The world cannot afford a crisis of this magnitude in relation to security, trade, or climate change,'' Mr Rudd wrote.

''But whether it is nuclear disarmament, global economic management or the environment, I argue we now have an unprecedented responsibility to make the global system work.''