Australia avoids a recession.

Which is incorrect.

Unemployment trend up:

• Terms of trade fell 7.8%, meaning imports are shrinking (note. other countries have recorded the same); this means consumption is down i.e less people buying stuff (recession)
  

• Exports are narrow at 2.7%, this is because imports collapsed (recession)

• The largest negative contribution came from Private business investment at -1.1 percentage points (if you live in Australia note the huge amount of vacant office space in the CBD's)

Not to forget the global economy is washing through the huge government stimulus that occurred late last year and early this year. I suspect this will finally dry up towards the end of 2009 as private investment will continue to shrink.

The key problem for policy makers/reserve bank officials is they will need to force the Australian dollar down, if they really care about exports. Other wise Australia like most countries bare the brunt of distorted markets and a weak USA dollar. So a weak AUD will eventuate to less imports, thus effecting domestic consumption and it reeks of protectionism (as policy makers/central banks try and ramp up exports).

It's terrible economics too measure recessions purely on export and import GDP numbers, unemployment and consumption should be factored into GDP numbers.

Look for yourself (if you live in Australia) Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, Mar 2009