On Saturday the prime minister, Kevin Rudd, announced the establishment, in partnership with the four major banks, of the Australian Business Investment Partnership. ABIP, which should be operational by March, will be established to provide finance to viable commercial property developers who need to roll over loans from foreign banks that are exiting the Australian market.The Australian government will commit $2 billion to the fund and the four banks will contribute another $2 billion between them. The fund will be able to borrow a further $30 billion for on-lending, with the benefit of a government guarantee. The government will charge a fee for the provision of its guarantee and it is expected that the fund will be wound up after two years.(How the fund could be wound up after two years is not clear; cessation of new lending after this time would seem more feasible, with its loan book allowed to run down from there.)This is the extent of the information that was made available over the weekend, with the exception that - according to the proponents - the fund is being established to protect the commercial property sector and the jobs of the 150,000 people it employs, about a third of whom may otherwise be at risk.There may be differences between the banks and the government, though, in their understanding of the rationale for for the fund.A column by Jennifer Hewitt in The Australian today reports that Westpac and ANZ, in representations to Treasury over recent days, emphasised that in their view the point of the fund was to foster the orderly refinancing of existing commercial property projects. Or in other words to allow foreign banks to withdraw from lending syndicates without triggering the insolvency of the borrower (whether a property trust of the likes of Centro).The rhetorical position of the government, at least over the weekend, sounded like the fund may invest in loans supporting new construction projects as well as those that are part completed. The Financial Review, though, today quotes the finance minister, Lindsay Tanner, saying that ABIP funds will only be available for completed or partly completed major property projects, and then only if the four major banks and the government agree.One other detail, reported on Saturday in the Herald Sun, is that Ahmed Fahour, currently executive director at National Australia Bank, is tipped to run the fund (and conveniently create an exit from NAB).While the government is keen to do whatever it can to protect the Australian economy through this global financial crisis, and at least some bankers think there is a need to take this course of action, it is not at all clear how real the need is.Indeed, NAB's new CEO, Cameron Clyne, was reported on several occasions last week as saying he has seen no evidence of foreign banks pulling out of Australia. And while some foreign banks probably will scale back their operations in Australia (such as TD Securities) there is nothing to say that the others that remain won't