The latest GDP figures released on Wednesday suggest on the surface the overall economy is doing better, but further inspection highlights the underlying weakness. The domestic private sector is in a dire state, having now shrunk for four consecutive quarters – the worst result since the 1990s recession – and the economy is now more dependent on government spending to keep it afloat than at any time since the GFC .

First the good news – things are better than we previously thought. The GDP figures contained some fairly significant revisions of past data, based on more accurate underlying data.

Whereas in June it appeared the economy grew by just 1.5% – the worst since 2001 – now the ABS estimates in June the economy was growing at an annual rate of 1.7% and is now growing at 1.8% in trend terms:

This is good, and yet it is pretty sad really how low the bar has become to think economic growth can be called “good”. The current growth rate of 1.8% is around 1% point below the long-term trend and well below the old marker of 3% growth that used to be considered average.

In the September quarter the economy grew by 0.4% (seasonally adjusted), or 0.5% (trend), still below average, but what is important is where this growth is being generated. The biggest driver was net exports – contributing 0.35% pts of that growth.

Mostly this came not from surging exports but another big decline in imports:

For the past four quarters we have reduced the amount we have been importing. So while the 1% growth in exports is below the post-GFC average, net exports (exports minus imports) are our biggest contributor to growth.

The reason we are importing less is because both private-sector businesses and households are slowing their growth of spending. And that is not a good thing.

In the past 12 months household consumption grew by a mere 1.2% – less than half the long-term average:

And this is off the back of the tax cuts. Clearly we have chosen to save more rather than spend, which is also reflected by the savings ratio increasing from 3.5% to 4.0%.

The treasurer and prime minister have both suggested this is fine – they argue it is up to people to decide how to spend their money – but it reflects a generally negative outlook.

As a result the second-biggest contributor to GDP growth was not household consumption but government spending:

Mostly this is increased spending on the NDIS and aged care. It is not due to a big increase in infrastructure.

In the September quarter, public-sector investment contributed just 0.03% pts to GDP growth and a mere 0.01% pts over the past year – the lowest amount for four years:

The past two quarters have seen the rare case where government spending is contributing more to economic growth than that of households. That generally happens only during recessions or sharp downturns such as the GFC:

It means if we take away government spending and investment as well as net exports, the private sector domestic economy is shrinking – it has fallen for four consecutive quarters and is down 0.8% in the past year:

This again is a very sad state of affairs – essentially suggesting the domestic private sector is in a recession. It is certainly not resonant of an economy with strong fundamentals.

Similarly, the productivity growth figures echo the dire results revealed earlier this week. GDP per hour worked has now averaged an annual growth of just 0.2% over the past three years – the worst result since the 1990s recession:

This is disastrous, given 1% average productivity growth is generally viewed as the long-term minimum that is utterly crucial for ensuring long-term wage and income growth.

On the latter, at least this quarter has seen some improvement. Real household disposable income per capita rose 0.9% over the past year – the strongest growth since 2015 – a welcome improvement, even if it only repairs the fall of the past few quarters:

But again, when we look closer we see the improvement is not due to a fundamental health in the economy, but rather just the tax cuts. The level of income paid in tax in real and per capita terms fell 2% in the September quarter, but gross household income per capital did not rise at all in real terms:

Little wonder that households took the tax cuts and put it on their mortgage or paid off their credit card rather than feel confident enough to spend the money.

The latest figures show that the economy remains very weak. Neither the tax cuts nor interest rate cuts have seen households increase spending. Yes, the tax cuts have helped increase household disposable income – but that is an obvious thing: if you tax people less, they have higher disposable income.

But the point of tax cuts is to spur economic activity. And thus far there are no signs of that happening at all.

• Greg Jericho writes on economics for Guardian Australia