Building work during 2014 was up $2.8 billion to $15 billion, of which Auckland and Canterbury accounted for the lion's share with nearly two-thirds of the workload.
While residential activity for the quarter to December gained impetus on the previous quarter, up 4.3%, commercial activity fell 5% and dragged all activity down to just a 0.3% gain. Work was up 16.2% on the same quarter a year ago.
Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon said following the September quarter rise of 1.1%, an increase of only 0.3% for December was below his expectation of 1.5%''[However] the shortfall is not large enough to affect our forecast of 1% growth in December quarter gross domestic product,'' he said.
The 4.3% rise in residential building work was a new seven-year high, but Mr Gordon noted the housing market appeared to go quiet before September's general election, setting the stage for a December-quarter rebound.
Mr Gordon was less concerned with the commercial construction 5% fall and ''miss'' for the quarter, given building consents had trended upward strongly during the past two years, while the lag between gaining consent and construction beginning could be long and ''highly variable''.
