Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

Whether it's households, whether it's farms, whether it's factories, whether it's small businesses, right across society Australians are worse off now than what they were prior to the election in May 2022 with the Albanese government. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition and member for Farrer asked a very good question in question time today when she queried the Prime Minister about the record number of Australian business insolvencies of any month ever. There are 1,364 businesses going up the spout. Since this Prime Minister took office, more than 24,700 Australian businesses have gone insolvent. The Prime Minister disputed those figures, even though they were the Australian Securities and Investment Commission's figures, even though they were the official statistics.

We have a government that is promising to build 1.2 million Australian homes. Amongst those insolvencies, the second-highest sector is the construction industry. If you look at the figures—and this again is ASIC data—for construction companies going insolvent, and these are for the first time a company enters external administration or has a controller appointed, in 2021-22 there are 1,284. In the following year, there were 2,213, and then there were 2,977 for the financial year 2023-24. Those figures come on the back of Labor saying that they're going to build 1.2 million Australian homes, come on the back of the Victorian government trying to shut down the timber industry, coming on the back of the Victorian government, where the member for Jagajaga lives, telling new homeowners that they can't put gas appliances in their homes. How, in goodness's name, are we going to get that number of houses built?

They did a cosy little deal yesterday with the Greens. Love is back in the air when it comes to Labor and the Greens. The romance never really browned off. They just—

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