A bookmaker's offer of $1.12 odds on Australia plunging into recession is "utterly irresponsible", Treasurer Wayne Swan says.
Centrebet will pay out punters if Australia slips into recession in the next 12 months.
But Mr Swan said he did not believe recession was a foregone conclusion.
"I think that sort of talk is utterly irresponsible," he told reporters in Brisbane on Wednesday.
"What the Australian government is doing in the face of the global financial crisis is everything that it possibly can to strengthen the economy and to protect jobs."