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 Australian Bureau of Statistics, ABC News reports.

"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 the coronavirus," the bureau's chief economist, Bruce Hockman, said.

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 per cent on record.

"When combined with the ongoing drought, which saw farm GDP fall by 2.4 per cent 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 per cent 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 per cent in China, 5.3 per cent in France, 2.2 per cent in Germany, 2 per cent in the United Kingdom and 1.3 per cent in the United States."

However, Labor'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.

A March coronavirus panic buying spending spree in supermarkets was not enough to prop up the Australian economy.

Australian Treasurer reckons economic Armageddon avoided