Despite significant government activity to boost housing stocks, approvals for new dwellings remain sluggish.
Trend figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show that total dwelling approvals were down 2.8 percent in Queensland during February.
This was the worst result across all the states, but Western Australia (-2.3 percent), Tasmania (-2.1 percent), and New South Wales (-1.4 percent) were also in negative territory.
The Australian Capital Territory (9.3 percent), Northern Territory (5.7 percent), South Australia (4.6 percent) and Victoria (2.2 percent) all had increase in approvals.
In the private sector market, trend approvals for houses fell in Western Australia (-1.6 percent), Queensland (-0.8 percent), and Victoria (-0.6 percent). New South Wales rose (0.6 percent) and the result in South Australia was flat, in trend terms.
Nationally, seasonally adjusted estimates for February showed total dwellings approved fell 0.3 percent to 16,606.
Private sector houses rose one percent, to 9203, while private sector dwellings excluding houses fell 1.5 percent, to 7113.
The value of total residential building rose 5.0percent, to $9.65b and the value of non-residential building fell 16.5 percent, to $4.69b.
The full report is on the ABS website.
