While addressing the National Press Club on Friday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg outlined the stark economic downturn Australia was experiencing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, drought and bushfires. He said Australia faced record falls in household spending, business investment and GDP.

In other news:

University of Tasmania senior lecturer in economics Dr Mala Raghavan, who specialises in economic shocks, said now was the time to have discussions about how to diversify our supply chains to safeguard against future shocks.

A shock is an unexpected event which impacts on the economy. The COVID-19 pandemic was an unpredictable event which has exposed Tasmania's reliance on the Chinese market.

Tasmania's rock lobster and abalone fishermen were the first to be affected by the pandemic impacting exports bound for China during the Chinese New Year.

Dr Raghavan said consolidating the strengths of our economy, such as agriculture and clean energy, and diversifying our trading partners would help make our economy more resilient.

"What we have learnt in recent times in that we shouldn't be over-reliant on one main export market," she said.

"This is the right time because the world is pausing at the moment, so we have to go back to the table and look at the things we can improve on."

UTAS senior lecturer and applied macroeconomics expert Dr Jing Tian said it was important to remember health restrictions weren't the enemy of the economy.

She said people shouldn't fear debt because short-term stimulus would be needed to help the economy recover.

In the medium-to-long-term, Dr Tian said it was important to assess the structure of our labour force and to move away from excessive casualisation.

"The labour market needs to be more resilient to any future shocks and we need to think about diversifying the risks in terms of the structure of the labour market," she said.

As of August 2019, about 2.6 million workers across Australia worked casual jobs.

Tasmania had the highest rate of casual workers with 28.3 per cent of people employed on a casual basis.

Dr Tian said we need to think about restructuring our workforce so casual workers aren't over-represented in vulnerable sectors.

"In Tasmania, we need to think about increasing the female participation in the labour market and think about whether a lot of casuals are in the hospitality or tourism sectors versus other sectors more resilient to the shocks," Dr Tian said.

"When we are talking about structure it could be different aspects, for example, the gender or the sectors or casual work verse full time."

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