There has been traffic on the roads, diners back in cafes, prime ministerial ideas being floated on newspaper front pages.

And a recession.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was doing his best cheerleader routine as he went through the national accounts on Wednesday.

Yes, Australia's economy shrank by 0.3 per cent - but he produced a "very powerful and relevant chart" showing Australia's relative strength on international comparisons.

Furthermore, he said, economists had initially predicted their version of Armageddon, contemplating a GDP collapse of more than 20 per cent by the middle of the year, but they're now pointing to about half that.

While Frydenberg did concede the June quarter figures are expected to be so bad we are in a recession right now, he didn't let the R-word pass his lips.

That was left to the prime minister on Thursday morning.

"I really didn't want to see a recession ever again in Australia," Scott Morrison told reporters shivering outside a home under construction outside of Canberra.

"As a government, we worked so hard to bring the budget back into balance ... to see COVID-19 hit it like a torpedo is absolutely devastating."

Remember, Morrison was the architect of three of the past four budgets.

Frydenberg said the coalition had conquered the mountain of debt and deficit once before and it could do it again.

Scaling this mountain will be a whole different adventure to dealing with the $18 billion deficit the coalition took on in 2013.

After the tens of billions spent in keeping people in jobs and business cashflow liquid, the modest surplus hoped for in 2020/21 is now looking like a deficit many, many times more than that $18 billion - estimates have put it above $100 billion.

The scale of numbers thrown around earlier during the pandemic can make the $688 million HomeBuilder package feel small, but it marks a pivot towards sector-specific recovery measures.

HomeBuilder comes on top of JobSeeker, JobKeeper and JobMaker.

An arts sector package is on the way (JobPainter?) and there are strong arguments for extra support for the hospitality and tourism industries which will have a slow recovery with ongoing limits on crowd numbers and travel.

Universities have also made a pitch for help, predicting they'll be out of pocket $16 billion over the next couple of years largely due to lost international student fees, but have been rebuffed.

The government thinks its $25,000 grants will entice nearly 30,000 people who had put off starting construction on a new home or renovations when the nation looked like it was on the road to Armageddon to go back to their bank and builder.

The work has to start within three months of signing the contract.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese points out that at a minimum, the scheme means a couple earning $200,000 at most will have to be prepared to fund $150,000 to spend.

"Not many people have $150,000 ready to go, ready to sign a contract when their jobs and the economic uncertainty that is out there will provide a hindrance to that investment," he said.

The Master Builders of Australia had asked for a $40,000 grant scheme for new builds only, which it said would deliver an extra 14,000 homes in the second half of the year.

Modelling it commissioned from EY said this would offer best value for money in terms of stimulus and helping the sector avoid a valley of death.

Labor is trying to both say this was our idea six weeks ago and it's the wrong thing to be doing.

They have been talking about the impending drop in work for builders for quite some time but think a better stimulus would be building or renovating social housing.

That would leave governments with an asset on their books at the end of the crisis and help out some of the nation's most disadvantaged citizens.

Meanwhile, things have returned enough to normal that Morrison was literally told "get off my (newly sown) lawn" by a homeowner who didn't want to renovate it that soon.

Australian Associated Press