It's official: Australia is in recession

It's the largest fall in quarterly gross domestic product since records began in 1959.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, private demand took 7.9 percentage points from GDP, which was driven by a 12.1 per cent fall in household final consumption expenditure. Spending on services dropped 17.6 per cent.

"The June quarter saw a significant contraction in household spending on services as households altered their behaviour and restrictions were put in place to contain the spread of the coronavirus," said the bureau's head of National Accounts Michael Smedes.

The impact of travel bans has been huge, with imports of services dropping 50.5 per cent and exports of services dropping 18.4 per cent. Imports of goods fell 2.4 per cent.

The release confirms Australia is in recession for the first time since 1990-91, following a drop in GDP of 0.3 per cent in the March quarter.

In a sign of how little people are spending, the houshold saving to income ratio increased to 19.8 per cent - up from 6 per cent.

Hours worked dropped 9.5 per cent, but wages dropped by 2.5 per cent, propped up by JobKeeper payments.

"I'm not going to predict the figures ahead of the release this morning, but we do need to expect a severe contraction and we know what has caused it - economies around the world have been hit very hard by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic," Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said on Sunrise this morning ahead of the release of the national accounts.

The first priority of the pandemic was saving lives, he said, but that has come at an economic cost.

"Part of that, we did have to impose significant restrictions on the economy in order to suppress the spread of the virus that was appropriate," he said.

"What is true, once you stabilise the situation, of course we need to bring revenue in when we can, but to find a pathway out of this into the new normal to ensure that we can maximise economic activity and the strength of the recovery in a way that's COVID-safe."

Labor's shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers said today would be a "dark day" ahead of the release.

"We know that unemployment has been rising even since the period covered by what will be some devastating National Accounts today," he said.

"We call on the government to stop creating distractions, to stop pointing the finger, creating diversions, shifting the blame, cutting super, wages and pensions, and instead to come up with a genuine comprehensive jobs plan to deal with the deepest, most devastating recession in our lifetimes."