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Speaker 1: It is no secret that the construction industry is in

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Speaker 1: trouble and there's a number of factors. Firstly, the booming

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Speaker 1: construction right after the pandemic years, as money became cheaper

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Speaker 1: and cheaper, so more and more projects were undertaken, more

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Speaker 1: and more builders were hired. We had a residential construction

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Speaker 1: boom in twenty twenty two, about fifty one thousand consents issued,

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Speaker 1: driven by surging house prices and historically low interest rates.

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Speaker 1: But the good times went to last. A new government

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Speaker 1: came in cut many projects, like the construction of two

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Speaker 1: and a half thousand state houses, cutting builders launches. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the supply of cheap money dried up as the Reserve

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Speaker 1: Bank attacked the recession by raising interest rates. We ended

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Speaker 1: out with too many builders for fewer projects. As major

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Speaker 1: infrastructure projects went on hiatus waiting for the government wanting

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Speaker 1: to spend on them, trained, highly trained construction workers went

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Speaker 1: looking for work. Most often in Australia, they left. Construction

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Speaker 1: went into a tailspin. There are claims that we've lost

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Speaker 1: seventeen thousand workers, but in every cloud you could almost

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Speaker 1: say there's a silver laning. A new report says that

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Speaker 1: construction firms are now offering large discounts to avoid collapse.

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Speaker 1: Some are offering discounts of up to fifty percent to

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Speaker 1: keep their workers busy. These are in the firms that

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Speaker 1: are left. Six hundred and eighty seven firms have been

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Speaker 1: liquidated this past year. It's a threefold increase in just

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Speaker 1: three years. It hasn't been pleasant. The firms that are

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Speaker 1: left and are still doing the business should be hailed

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Speaker 1: as heroes prepared to work through the bad times rather

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Speaker 1: than cutting and running. And can I just say to you,

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Speaker 1: if you're thinking about a commercial residential bill, can I

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Speaker 1: suggest there is no better time that now. You'll never

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Speaker 1: get a better deal going forward. And maybe, just maybe

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Speaker 1: we might be able to work our way out of

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Speaker 1: a construction bust, which was all our making in the

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Speaker 1: first place. For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge,

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Speaker 1: listen live to News Talk Set B from five am weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.