Official data on Australias economy continue to undermine the Albanese Governments critics, asAlan Austinreports.

IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE to the one that hosted Labors constructive Economic ReformRoundtablelast month, some noisy commentators want voters to believe Australias economy is deteriorating and Labor is to blame.

Sky Newsis running a mendacious campaign asserting the economy is hurtling off a cliff.The Australianclaims the nation has a new home building crisis. The Liberal Party isshoutinginto the void that Labor has regulated the economy into a pulp.

Fortunately, these dire false narratives are all debunked by the actual outcomes published byTreasury, theFinance Department, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and by Australias highly profitable corporations.

These show two stark realities that the economy suffered disastrously through the three Coalition terms and is now rebounding rapidly.

Last weeks economic roundtable allows Treasurer Jim Chalmers to continue his incremental agenda now and radically transform the nation later.

Business gives Labor a huge vote of confidence

Last weeks ABS update oncapital expenditureby Australias private sector confirmed both observations that business investment collapsed under the Coalition and is now recovering. See chart below.

(Data source:ABS)

From highs above $210 billion under former PMJulia Gillardafter the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), capital investment slumped badly through theAbbott,TurnbullandMorrisonyears, down to just $144 billion in 2020-21.

What makes this so appalling is that during those post-GFC years, the rest of the world enjoyed strong economic growth, buoyant employment, healthy wage rises, flourishing trade, record capital investment and excellent corporate profits. Governmentbudgetsurpluses then enabled substantial debtrepayment.

Capital expendituresurgedin the USA in 2017. It also increased inSpain, theNetherlandsand across theEuro Area.

Australia in 2017, in contrast, recorded the lowest capital investment in almost a decade. This declined further in 2020 and 2021, as investment shifted elsewhere.

The second clear message from the chart above is that those dismal days are gone.

Record business start-ups

In the year to June, Australians started 437,150new businessesand shut down 370,500. Thats a net increase of 66,650, ending the year with an all-time high 2.73 million firms operating. Thats well above the 2.4 million at June 2021.

Industries with the highest growth in business counts were:

• healthcare and social assistance, up 6.6%;
• transport postal and warehousing, up 5.1%; and
• financial and insurance services, up 3.7%.

Alan Austin has contributed to the Albanese Governments Economic Reform Roundtable. This is the text, slightly edited and with extra graphs.

Construction saw a net increase of 10,002 businesses in the last financial year, a lift of 2.2%. This was the result of 76,414 businesses starting and 66,412 closing.

Those numbers appear disturbingly high, but are in fact quite normal. Over the last three years, post-COVID, construction start-ups have averaged 75,300 annually and closures averaged 66,100.

Housing leads the surge

In a surprise to many, and an embarrassment to the doom merchants in the mainstream newsrooms, construction increased substantially in the financial year just ended. Thats according to last weeksABS reporton home building and engineering construction for the June quarter. This makes three straight years of strong growth in this sector following the Coalition slump. See chart below.

(Data source:ABS)

The ABS measures building and construction separately for the private and public sectors. Since the 2022 change of government, all four categories have increased every financial year.

Only once in nine years did the Coalition manage an increase in all four ABS construction categories. That was in 2017-18.

Businesses report record profits

The current profit reporting season is confirming that conditions now enable well-managed businesses to thrive.

Qantasreporteda net profit of $1.61 billion in the last financial year, up 28% on what was a healthy return last year. Thats despite the $90 million fine and $120 million it paid in compensation for its unlawfuloutsourcingof ground handling.

Colesposteda net profit of $1.08 billion, a rise of 2.4%. Wesfarmers Limitedreported$2.93 billion in net profit for the year, up 14.4%. Harvey Normangenerateda record $518million profit, up 47% on the year before.

Tabcorpposteda net profit of $36.6 million, in a strong turnaround from its $1.36 billion loss last year. Net profit of Austin Engineering (no relation, unfortunately)jumped70% to $40.4 million.

Other profit-making corporations includeVodafone,Mecca,Virgin Australia,ASX Limited,Austaland theMacquarie Group.

Pundits berating the Labor Government over productivity are getting it all wrong.

Newsrooms starting to catch up

TheHerald Sunran a story last week titled Australian household spending tipped to rise on rate and tax cuts, which was promoted online as Major sign Aussies starting to spend again'.

It reported that, Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows household spending was up just 0.4 per cent in the March quarter and says this is a major sign the worst of the cost-of-living crisis might be over.

That data is accurate, so kudos to the Murdoch tabloid for getting a story right for a change.

But heres the thing. The ABS quarterlynational accountsdata used in that analysis was released on 4 June. So this is not exactly fresh news. The four previous quarterly reports, issued in March, June, September and December 2024, also showed increasing household spending, which all confirmed, as IA reported first back inJune 2024and later inOctober 2024, that the cost of living crisis actually ended in late 2023.

The Herald Sun should have reported this in early 2024 as it unfolded. It didnt, of course, because all mainstream newsrooms chose to spruik the false narrative of a cost of living crisis through the 2025 election campaign.

Fortunately, this did not succeed.

Now lets see how long it will take the other loser newsrooms to catch up with reality and report the truth.

Alan Austinis an Independent Australia columnist and freelance journalist. You can follow him@alanaustin001.

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