31 May 2012
Victoria and Queensland are still outperforming NSW on construction expenditure and on building approvals, says the Urban Taskforce Australia.
The recent release of the ABS trend figures for construction expenditure over the March 2012 quarter shows a 22% drop over the last year for NSW, says Urban Taskforce CEO Chris Johnson. Victoria spent $5.55 billion on all new construction in the March quarter while the larger population of NSW only managed $3.82 billion. The smaller state of Queensland almost matched NSW with an expenditure of $3.64 billion.
It is the drop of 22% in the last year that is most worrying for NSW as we had expected a boost of confidence in the industry with the election of the OFarrell government. With the desperately needed planning reforms put back by 6 months the state will need some other levers to be pulled by government if we are going to match the performance of Victoria and Queensland.
We desperately need some good news in the development and building industry in NSW to ensure the supply chain of new projects is able to maintain construction jobs.
House approvals have dropped to around 1,250 a month which is similar to the smaller state of Western Australia, and below the approvals for Victoria and Queensland.
We now have both houses and higher density housing at a low 1,250 approvals a month.
We urge the NSW Government to include actions in the forthcoming state budget to stimulate the building and development industry.
