Australia’s construction industry is a $360-billion house of cards teetering in a profitless boom in which builders big and small are going bust—and warnings from its coalface indicate the worst is yet to come.

According to industry leaders, long-established cracks in the sector’s foundation are now so wide that it is “totally unsustainable” and in need of urgent major reform if it is to have the capacity to build projects that need to be built.

Up to 25 per cent of all insolvencies in Australia are companies within the construction industry.