Okay, maybe those alarm bells have been ringing for a while over housing, but the industry is pointing at a fire down the road.

Fresh from one disaster, caused by the collapse of the logistics and inflation which exposed any weakness in balance sheets, it seems to be heading into another and with scant concern from governments about fixing it.

According to the construction sector, building firms are entering administration at more than twice the rate of other industries, profit margins have fallen from around 3 per cent to below 1 per cent and liquidity has collapsed from 15 per cent to below 5 per cent.

“Most concerningly, over half of all large builders are now carrying current liabilities in excess of current assets—a technical definition of insolvency. The building industry is a textbook example of market failure,” the Australian Construction Association said.

That’s one element of the problem.

Housing, of course, is the big concern for the public, as it should be because the construction targets just don’t seem realistic. The workforce demands are also a very real concern considering what’s ahead with the shift to renewables.

But also consider what’s in the pipeline with the Olympics.

Arcadis executive Matthew Mackey has been highlighting a looming problem for the sector coming from the huge construction spend that is coming.

He claims it will be the biggest construction boom in Queensland in more than a decade. The last one was during the resources boom when LNG and coal projects combined in huge capital spend.

That ordinarily should be a good thing for the construction sector, but as he has been highlighting the boom will predominantly be in government spending.

His assessment is that this boom will kick off in 2024-25 with civil and road infrastructure spending that would total $9 billion between 2024 and 2032.

He assessed that rail infrastructure would hit $8.6 billion, the overall investment in the Olympics would be $7 billion and the health sector spending would hit $5.5 billion.

“This construction boom will be predominantly led by Government investment and this is likely to seriously curtail private sector investment, predominantly in the commercial sector.’’

“So the construction challenge remains. How can we get all this delivered?’’

Also, that is just in southeast Queensland.

The State Government also has a strategy for energy worth $60 billion.

The Borumba pumped hydro scheme alone is $14 billion (and let’s assume that’s massively conservative) and would eat up an estimated 2000 jobs. CopperString is another $5 billion and 750 jobs.

The Federal Government has its own $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund which will build 30,000 new social and affordable housing properties in the first 5 years.

The states and the Federal Government have also come up with what even they call an “ambitious new national target to build 1.2 million new homes over five years, from 1 July 2024.

This is an additional 200,000 new homes above the National Housing Accord target agreed by states and territories last year.

Master Builders has forecast that new home starts will peak to just over 241,000 in 2026-27.

If you think the labour market is tight, consider what is ahead.

Add to that another issue. According to Infrastructure Minister Catherine King the number of infrastructure projects in the pipeline promised by the Morrison Government blew out from 150 to almost 800 and there was inadequate funding, resources to cater to them.