The Reserve Bank of Australia said the nation has joined its global peers in recession, but the long-term prospects for growth remain sound, Dow Jones Newswires reported. The statement by RBA Governor Glenn Stevens that Australia's economy is shrinking matches a similar message from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan, both of whom this week signaled Australia is headed for its first recession since the early 1990s.

Kleenmaid’s 150 staff will lose their jobs after the Queensland-based upmarket kitchen and laundry appliance seller was put into voluntary administration, the Australian Associated Press reported. However, 25 employees will be asked to help with the administration process involving the company which had 20 outlets in NSW, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia and a $90 million turnover last year. A total of $27 million in customer deposits has also been lost, the administrator says.

There are many small tragedies within a global disaster like this, the Business Spectator reported, and one of them is Ventracor--for years one of Australia’s leading biotech prospects. Two weeks ago, Ventracor went into voluntary administration and is now, amazingly, facing complete closure. It has no debt and a technology that works: 400 people are walking around in the United States with its artificial heart whirring in their chests.

Debt-laden Australian miner OZ Minerals slumped almost 12 percent Tuesday after the government postponed a decision on allowing a A$2.6 billion dollar ($1.8 billion) takeover by China's Minmetals, Agence France-Presse reported. The market had hoped to see the deal approved when OZ Minerals shares were suspended on the Australian Stock Exchange Monday pending an announcement, but instead the government said it would not make a decision for 90 days.

The spreading of company tax debt is "a time bomb waiting to go off", according to Hall Chadwick accountants and business advisers partner Richard Albarran. An expert in insolvency and business recovery, Albarran said more companies than ever before are resorting to (voluntary) administration over taxes, Money Management reported.

US-based Primus Telecommunications Group, together with three affiliated holding companies, said it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy so it could undergo a restructure. The company will reduce its principal debt obligations and interest payments by more than 50 percent. The restructure will grant the company a three year extension on its debt maturities and will allow the company to continue operating as it is, The Australian reported.

New Zealand investors have nixed Babcock & Brown’s hope of staying afloat, rejecting a restructure proposal and an 0.1% payout on their $225 million investment in Babcock subordinated notes, The National Business Review reported. Babcock is now in administration, as the vote that was to be held later today in Australia will no longer take place. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu have been appointed as administrators. They will ask creditors to nominate a committee of representatives at the first meeting to be held on March 25.

Australia’s A$42 billion ($28 billion) stimulus package may keep the nation from sliding into its first recession since 1991 by stoking consumer spending and building schools, roads and hospitals, Bloomberg reported. The Treasury department forecasts Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s stimulus plan will help Australia defy a global recession by creating 90,000 jobs and boosting consumer spending. Almost one third of the package includes cash handouts of as much as A$900 to low and middle-income earners.

Australian consumers grew more pessimistic in February despite aggressive stimulus measures implemented to stave off recession and arrest rising unemployment, The Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer sentiment in Australia fell 4.6% in February from the prior month, according to an index released Wednesday by Westpac Banking Corp. and the Melbourne Institute. The consumer sentiment index fell to 85.8 points in February in seasonally adjusted terms from 89.9 points in January.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has asked the bankruptcy court to let it retain Jones Day as special counsel to help the former financial services company with issues that have arisen in the Asia-Pacific region related to its Chapter 11 case. In a motion filed Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Lehman said the law firm would help it in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and Australia with matters related to its bankruptcy filing.