Facts and figures confirm Murdoch’s minions are continually lying to you

News Corp in Australia systematically distorts the ‘news’ it publishes, this time on bankruptcies. Alan Austin reports.

WE KNEW THIS would happen. As soon as preliminary insolvency figures to June showed a surge above previous years, it was inevitable that members of the craven news media would blame Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Labor. So they did.

Once again, their mendacity proves they hold their customers in contempt and are happy to undermine social cohesion for a dollar. Fortunately, their reach appears to be diminishing.

The first “news” item The Australian newspaper emailed to its contact list last Friday morning read:

‘Business failures surged to a record high in the past financial year as deteriorating economic conditions combined with rising operating expenses forced many companies to close for good.’

Murdoch presenters and executives admit they lie to you routinely

The latest court documents provide damning proof of News Corp’s intentional malice and mendacity.

The hotlink to the article – which fortuitously is hidden behind a paywall – revealed this summary:

‘Record year for business failures as economic woes bite. Australia has had its worst year for insolvencies, passing highs set during the GFC, with experts predicting more large companies will follow Bonza and Booktopia into strife this year.’

The truth, of course, is vastly different. The tragic reality is that Australia’s economy suffered disastrously from nearly nine years of Coalition corruption and incompetence, and is now gradually being restored by sensible policies.

The previous Coalition Government made countless foolish decisions. One was to instruct the Australian Tax Office (ATO) in 2020 to go easy during the COVID crisis on corporations slow to pay wages and remit taxes and superannuation deductions due. It also paid hundreds of billions in so-called emergency stimulus, much of which was wasted.

Handing free money to businesses "no questions asked" naturally attracted the shonks who made whoopee through the COVID downturn and didn’t care about returning funds that weren’t theirs to keep.

Now that responsible fiscal management has been restored, businesses are required to pay wages, taxes, super and other overdue payments. Naturally, many cannot pay, so they are declaring bankruptcy as a way out.

Last Thursday’s annual insolvency figures for 2023-24 from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) show a total of 11,049. This is indeed higher than any previous year since the series began in 1999 — but not much higher. The average for the ten years before COVID hit in early 2020 was 9,334. Over that period, the range was 7,747 to 10,757.

News Corp has no shame in having no standards

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp relies on underhand news-gathering practices that present a lack of journalistic integrity.

What Thursday’s ASIC data also showed – and this is critical – is that insolvencies plummeted to 4,235 in 2020-21 and 4,912 in 2021-22. These are obviously artificially low due to failing businesses being propped up — by an incompetent Coalition regime throwing away billions of borrowed dollars.

We should note that the average for the last four years, including the latest all-time high number, is just 7,035, which is well below the long-term average.

So what does this reveal about the ‘deteriorating economic conditions combined with rising operating expenses’ that The Australian wants us to believe caused these bankruptcies?

Nothing whatsoever. Murdoch’s hacks are either knowingly lying or too stupid to understand what is actually happening.

The real reason for the insolvency surge

Jarvis Archer is a registered liquidator and director at restructuring firm Business Reset.

He told Independent Australia:

‘During the pandemic, company insolvencies halved and so there were about 8,000 less company insolvencies. FY24 saw about 3,000 more companies enter insolvency than usual, leaving a shortfall of 5,000 insolvencies that did not occur.’

Many of those reported insolvencies, Archer says, were due to the ATO’s claw-backs:

‘ATO small business debt doubled to $34 billion during the pandemic. The ATO’s main priority is to get its debt book down by restoring normal debt collection activities after years of leniency and restoring a level playing field where all businesses are expected to pay their debts.’

Murdoch propaganda machine catastrophic for democracy

News Corp publications and television shows offer little in the way of actual news and rely heavily on biased commentary.

Archer believes the situation could get worse before it gets better:

‘While old debts might be collected, new debts are not being paid as businesses continue to struggle. This will lead to ongoing efforts to remove unviable businesses from the economy, meaning more failures until economic conditions improve.’

Other media complicit in the deceit

The Australian Financial Review (AFR) made the same dopey error as The Australian – or tried the same deliberate ruse – back in April, in an article headed, ‘Business bankruptcies are at a 25-year high and that’s very bad news’.

It would indeed be bad news if it were true. It wasn’t.

The AFR claimed falsely that high insolvencies in March showed that ‘Intensifying labour and input costs are a killer for companies with little pricing power’.

It refused to acknowledge the real reason for the bankruptcy surge — the ATO’s determined claw-back.

Reliable data available

So if insolvencies give no guide to the health of the economy, are there datasets that do? Yes, several. They all convey the same message.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) publishes quarterly data on emergency accommodation and financial support for Australians in short-term strife. The latest data does not show a surge in people in need. Emergency short-term stays rose marginally in the 2024 first quarter, but remain below 2020 and 2021 levels.

So, yes, times are tough. Times are always challenging in every competitive economy every year. There is no evidence of a deeper crisis right now.

Hopeful prospects

All outcomes support the alternative media’s reportage — that the Coalition’s economic management was highly destructive and will take decades to repair, and that Labor is making steady progress.

The other conclusion is that the mainstream media continues to mislead. The sooner it is boycotted out of existence, the happier, safer and more prosperous all Australians will be.

Happily, News Corp is purging staff from some newsrooms as customers drift away. Let’s ensure that drift becomes an avalanche.