High interest rates, cooling property prices and rising unemployment are converging on Australian households at the same time, and insolvency firm Jirsch Sutherland says that combination is starting to show up in the numbers.
New figures from the Australian Financial Security Authority show personal insolvencies rose 13.1 per cent in the June quarter of 2026 compared with the same period the year before. Almost a third of those cases were business related, and that category grew even faster, up 17.8 per cent to 1,093.
AFSA recorded 3,596 Australians entering personal insolvency in the quarter, up from 3,179 a year earlier. Bankruptcies alone rose 9.6 per cent to 1,950. People in capital cities entered personal insolvency at higher rates…