Shareholders must prepare to sacrifice their dividends to carry Australian businesses through the COVID-19 crisis and accept relegation to an unfamiliar and lowly role in the market's pecking order.

While Australian regulators will not yet follow the move by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand in demanding that banks halt dividends, investors are bracing for significant cuts in distributions.

MST Marquee senior analyst Hasan Tevfik said the message sent by policymakers and the community to corporate Australia is clear: "do your bit".

"Australia Inc should adopt a whole-hearted approach here, not only for the livelihood of the broader community but also to generate goodwill with their other stakeholders, to allow for their business to return to normal when the economy does," he wrote in new research to fund manager clients on Thursday.

The global pandemic has led companies "to re-assess who they look after first when conducting their business" and "while the shareholder has previously ranked first, we think they now rank last".

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