ALMOST half a million Australians could have $900 stimulus cheques still waiting for them at the tax office, The Courier-Mail reports.

The latest figures from the Australian Taxation Office reveal more than 450,000 people are yet to lodge last year's tax return and may be eligible for a slice of the Rudd Government's $8 billion cash splash.

The ATO was inundated with outstanding returns after the Government announced it would hand out cheques of up to $900 to all taxpayers earning less than $100,000.

More than two million tax returns have flooded in to the tax office since February - 20 per cent more than in the same period last year.

However, the clock is ticking for tardy taxpayers. They have only three weeks to meet the June 30 deadline to send

in their return and claim their cheque.

The stimulus cheques were lauded as a partial solution for the economy last week after national accounts showed growth of 0.4 per cent in the first three months of the year.

Treasury estimated that without the stimulus payments, the economy would have gone backwards by 0.2 per cent.

Treasurer Wayne Swan yesterday praised Australians, saying they had pulled together in the face of adversity.

"While virtually every other advanced economy in the world is going backwards, the efforts of people right around the country have seen our economy go forward," he wrote in his weekly online Economic Note.

"It's a testament to the unity and resilience of all Australians that in the midst of the worst global economic conditions in 75 years, we achieved the strongest growth of any advanced economy."

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey said the Government was claiming too much credit for the results.

He said the global financial crisis would not have affected a Coalition government as severely because it would not have spent so much money.

But he said he would keep the stimulus plan if he became Treasurer, despite the Coalition voting against the package.