Australia in its first recession in 29 years

GDP figures from the Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show Australia's economy shrank 0.3 percent in the March quarter, amid bushfires and the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

This makes it certain that Australia will suffer its first recession in 29 years, as the full impact of coronavirus-related shutdowns occurred during the current June quarter.

Economists widely define a recession as two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction, which are now certain to occur.

The last time Australia recorded two consecutive negative quarters for GDP was March and June 1991, dubbed by then treasurer Paul Keating as "the recession we had to have".

Even before the full effect of the coronavirus hit, Australia's economy recorded its slowest annual growth in more than a decade, according to the ABS.

"This was the slowest through-the-year growth since September 2009, when Australia was in the midst of the global financial crisis, and captures just the beginning of the expected economic effects of Covid-19," the bureau's chief economist Bruce Hockman said.

Economic 'Armageddon' avoided, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says

While admitting that Australia is now in recession, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it could have been a lot worse.

"Treasury were contemplating a fall in GDP of more than 20 percent in the June quarter. This was the economists' version of Armageddon," he told reporters at Parliament House.

"It was in this quarter - the March quarter - that consumer and business confidence fell to its lowest level on record; that the ASX 200 lost a third of its value and; on the 16th of March, saw its biggest daily fall of 9.7 percent on record.

"When combined with the ongoing drought which saw farm GDP fall by 2.4 percent in the quarter and the devastating impact of the fires that were raging across many states, one looks back on the March quarter, and there wasn't much good news.

"Seen in this context, the fact that the Australian economy only contracted by 0.3 percent shows the Australian economy's remarkable resilience.

"Indeed, Australia's performance in the March quarter compares very well to that seen in other nations, with negative growth of 9.8 percent in China, 5.3 percent in France, 2.2 percent in Germany, 2 percent in the United Kingdom and 1.3 percent in the United States."

The Australian Labor Party's shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers took aim at the government's economic performance prior to the pandemic.

"While the pandemic came without warning, long-standing weakness in the economy did not," he said.

"Even before the worst of this virus, even before the bushfires, we had issues with weak growth, and stagnant wages, and weak business investment, and productivity, and net debt in the budget had already more than doubled.

"We entered this very difficult crisis from a position of weakness rather than strength."

Sarah Hunter from BIS Oxford Economics said the nation looked likely to escape a worst-case scenario akin to the Great Depression.

"With the health outcomes tracking better than expected [which has allowed an earlier-than-anticipated end to lockdown conditions] and the government packages providing a significant support to household income, the decline in GDP in the first half of 2020 will be relatively small when compared to other economies," she wrote.

"We now expect the peak-to-trough fall in GDP to be significantly less than 10 percent.

"Although the immediate outlook is better than anticipated a couple of months ago, the economy still faces challenges.

"The size and speed of the decline are unprecedented and, as currently legislated, there is a substantial policy cliff edge at the end of the third quarter [when the majority of the additional support for households comes to an end] that must be navigated."

Frydenberg said the government would provide an update on the economy and stimulus programs in July.

"The Finance Minister and I will be providing a detailed update on the economic numbers now in July as opposed to June, and we're doing so because we're going to announce, at the same time, the outcomes of our JobKeeper review," he told reporters.

Saving for another rainy day

Possibly the most hazardous peril over the edge of that "fiscal cliff" was a newfound urgency in people to save for a rainy day, having now experienced the sudden and unexpected disruption caused by the pandemic.

The household saving rate jumped as households cut back on spending, despite a 6.2 percent increase in social assistance benefits.

"Households have already moved to boost precautionary savings, with the savings rise jumping to 5.5 percent from 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019 even as income was boosted by social assistance benefits," EY's chief economist Jo Masters said.

"This shift reflects the intensifying headwinds to spending.

"Households are absorbing higher unemployment, elevated job insecurity, falling house prices, concerns about a second Covid-19 outbreak, all against a backdrop of already high debt levels."

The single biggest drag on the economy was this dramatic slump in private demand, which knocked 0.8 percentage points from GDP as household consumption fell 1.1 percent.

The ABS said a rise in spending on goods - notably in food and pharmaceuticals as people hoarded amid the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic - was not enough to offset a significant fall in services spending.

The biggest spending falls were in those areas most severely affected by travel and social-distancing restrictions, such as transport services (-12 percent), hotels, cafes and restaurants (-9.2 percent), and arts and recreation.

Sales of clothing and footwear also plunged (-8.9 percent) as consumers focused their purchases on essential goods and home office equipment in preparation for lockdowns.

Separate ABS data show these are also the sectors that have suffered the largest job losses.

Partly offsetting the falls were a rise in government spending, which added 0.3 percentage points to growth, and net trade, which contributed 0.5 percentage points as imports slumped while commodity exports held up reasonably well.

- ABC