Business is booming — defying newsroom doom and gloom

The latest reports on business profits in Australia expose the craven lies of the mainstream newsrooms once again, as Alan Austin reports.

EVERYONE GAINS when the corporate sector has a great year and generates excellent profits. Well, almost everyone.

Australia’s manufacturing sector has had its best year on record for gross operating profits. That’s according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) which released its quarterly profits update earlier this month. See blue and green chart, below.

Since World War II, manufacturing has gone through many cycles of boom and bust — often accompanied by dire predictions of disastrous permanent collapse. The sector always bounces back.

The current expansion appears to have begun immediately after COVID restrictions were lifted in 2021 and shows no signs of slowing. These outcomes validate Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ initiatives, including his decision to streamline capital investment approvals through 'a single front door' to attract foreign manufacturing investment.

All-time high profits in seven sectors

In its quarterly business reports, the ABS separates corporate profits into 15 sectors.

The other six that recorded record profits in the financial year to 30 June this year, along with manufacturing, were:

Construction: Which earned $31.1 billion, up 11.0% from two years earlier, under the previous Coalition Government.
Professional, scientific and technical services: With $29.6 billion, up 16.5% on the June 2022 outcome.
Electricity, gas, water and waste services: With $21.5 billion in profits, up a thumping 31.2% from two years ago.
Transport, postal and warehousing: Earning $32.3 billion, up 35.4% on June 2022.
Administrative and support services: Earning $8.1 billion, more than double the profits recorded two years earlier.
Other general services: With $9.7 billion, a gain of 32.5% over 2022.

Retailers and wholesalers each recorded the second-highest gross profits on record. Both mining and rental, hiring and real estate services posted third-highest profit totals.

The grand total of all sectors was $538.7 billion, making three consecutive years of more than half a trillion dollars in profits. The grand total to June this year was marginally below the tallies of the last two years, which had been somewhat distorted by mining megaprofits in both 2022 and 2023.

Excluding mining, the grand total for the year to June was emphatically the best on record. See the blue chart, below.

Nearly everyone gains

Strong profitability is good for executives and managers chasing ever-higher salaries and bonuses, great for shareholders keen to maximise return on their investments, excellent for super funds, good for the government which relies on company tax revenue to fund its operations and balance the budget, and positive for the economy.

It is also great for workers as it bolsters their claims for wage rises and for consumers who can expect better service from enterprises competing successfully in the marketplace.

The losers are those who want to see Labor replaced by the Coalition, either out of tribal enmity or personal gain from a corrupt regime. These include Australia’s mainstream newsrooms which have been exposed again for their malicious campaign of destructive falsehoods.

Construction outcomes defy media gloom

The shonks in the Murdoch, Nine and ABC newsrooms have attacked the Albanese Government for fabricated failures in the construction sector since it took office.

This is a smattering of recent prejudicial headlines above falsified “stories”:

‘Why Australia’s home-building outlook just got worse’ [AFR, 9 Sept 2024 ]
‘Anthony Albanese’s main policy addressing the housing crisis has little hope of success’ [News.com.au, 9 Sept 2024]
‘Construction insolvencies come racing out of the blocks in FY25’ [AFR, 27 August 2024]
‘Construction industry crippled as Ross Greenwood warns hundreds more building companies set to collapse this year’ [Sky News, 24 July 2024]
‘Building bad: How bikies, underworld have become a construction industry cancer’ [The Age/SMH, 13 July 2024]
‘Massive dwindle of private investment in property construction’ [The Australian, 3 May 2024]
‘Numerous private construction companies entering into liquidation’ [The Australian, 23 April 2024]
‘Building industry still struggling’ [ABC News, 12 April 2024]
‘Builders and construction firms continue to go bust’ [ABC News, 4 April 2024]
‘Builders warn Anthony Albanese of cracks in housing target’ [The Australian, 17 January 2024]

Many of these reports refused to acknowledge the surge in non-viable building companies under the last corrupt and incompetent administration which handed out cash – all borrowed money – to almost anyone who asked for it. They failed to notice that the last mob got the tax office to go easy on collections of payroll, income and other taxes, which eventually came due. And, they refused to examine the data.

While these charlatans were bemoaning the “crippled construction industry”, and placing blame on the Albanese Government directly or by implication, the ABS was busy proving the opposite.

It has now been confirmed that 2023-24 was the best year on record for total gross operating profits in the construction sector. See the blue and pink chart, below.

Independent Australia has persistently challenged the veracity of the mainstream newsroom attacks. Analysis here last year showed construction turnover increased 17.6% through Labor’s first 12 months. That was the strongest surge since that particular ABS series began in 2010.

We then reported here in April that the Government had boosted jobs in the construction sector its first 21 months by 131,000, which was up 11.0%. We also reported in April that construction in last year’s December quarter was the highest since 2015.

We were a lone voice. Now, with construction profits clearly at an all-time high, we don’t like to say “We told you so” but... No, wait, yes we do.