For 25 years, Mr Ryan was a builder in Bowral. Now he has been forced to lay off his workers and sell his home to pay them because, in two separate cases, the construction companies he was contracted to went belly up, leaving him almost $900,000 out of pocket.

The solution, as Mr Ryan (pictured) has suggested, is a trust account or escrow arrangement.

Under such a scheme, a portion of the funds would be paid not to the primary construction company, but to an escrow agent.

The escrow agent would be authorised to release progress payments to the subbies as they complete their various milestones.

For government contracts, however, the solution could be simpler: the government itself can manage the money so that subbies are not hung out to dry.

It's true that such a scheme might result in governments reimbursing subbies for work that will never be completed.

But perhaps there would be a positive in that too. If government departments understood they could be left holding the bag, they might be more diligent when awarding those big juicy contracts in the first place.