AFSA has released numbers of new personal insolvencies in the June quarter 2025, totaling 3,179, a 7.9% increase on the 2,947 in the June 2024 quarter.
What AFSA does not show clearly is whether the June 2025 monthly figure is higher or lower than May, and what the total is for the 2024-2025 year.
Probably these details don’t matter so much given the very flat numbers and the fact that the Inspector-General separately reports that
“insolvencies rose a modest 5% in the financial year just ended, from 11,600 to 12,250 – and are expected to increase to 13,000 in this 2025–26 financial year. This is still well down on the 10-year average of 19,500”.
We have to wait until the end of the year, usually Christmas eve, for the more useful annual July 2024-June 2025 administration statistics, which show average remuneration, realisations and dividends in bankruptcies, Part X’s and debt agreements, government levies, legal costs, numbers of objections etc. Even these remain in a rather staid format.
In Insolvency law reform – and income contributions, I refer to an article by Keith Bennetts, back in 1997, as to the need for proper data to support bankruptcy law reform, his example being s 139ZQ, which was introduced to provide a cheaper administrative means for effecting voidable transaction recoveries rather than costly litigation.
He asks what data was gathered to support the introduction of that section in 1992.
Whatever was gathered then, if anything, we can ask now – how effective is the section? to what extent does litigation proceed anyway?, and what are the comparative returns to creditors, if any?
The 2023 PJC Report has called for data to be collected to support its law reform suggestions. Since then, there has been no evident response from government or industry. In 2025, there should be some move to consolidate data now that AFSA has moved to Treasury.
But as I have often quoted from an IMF paper, we seem content to just continue to legislate in the dark.
