MARCH KEY FIGURES

	Mar qtr 11	Dec qtr 10 to Mar qtr 11	Mar qtr 10 to Mar qtr 11
	$m	% change	% change
TREND ESTIMATES(a)
Value of Work Done	20 080.2	-4.0	-4.6
New residential building	9 968.3	-1.1	1.5
Alterations and additions to residential building	1 722.7	-	1.7
Non-residential building	8 428.9	-7.5	-11.6
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES(a)
Value of Work Done	19 988.5	-4.1	-5.0
New residential building	10 083.1	0.7	4.6
Alterations and additions to residential building	1 723.5	-	1.5
Non-residential building	8 181.9	-10.1	-15.7
- nil or rounded to zero (including null cells)
(a) Chain volume measures, reference year 2008-09.

Value of work done, Chain volume measures

Value of work done, Chain volume measures - Trend estimates

MARCH KEY POINTS


VALUE OF WORK DONE, CHAIN VOLUME MEASURES

TOTAL BUILDING

• The trend estimate of the value of total building work done fell 4.0% in the March 2011 quarter.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate of the value of total building work done fell 4.1% to $19,988.5m, in the March quarter, following a fall of 3.7% in the December 2010 quarter.

NEW RESIDENTIAL

• The trend estimate of the value of new residential building work done fell 1.1% in the March quarter. The value of work done on new houses fell 2.8% while new other residential building rose 2.1%.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate of the value of new residential building work done rose 0.7% to $10,083.1m. Work done on new houses fell 1.2% to $6,461.6m, while new other residential building rose 4.2% to $3,621.6m.

NON-RESIDENTIAL

• The trend estimate of the value of non-residential building work done fell 7.5% in the March quarter. See data notes on page 2 of this publication.
• The seasonally adjusted estimate of the value of non-residential building work done in the quarter fell 10.1%, following an 8.3% fall in the December quarter.

NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE (QUARTER)	Release Date
June 2011	19 October 2011
September 2011	18 January 2012

ABOUT THIS ISSUE

This publication updates the preliminary estimates released in Construction Work Done, Australia (cat. no. 8755.0) on 25 May 2011, and Dwelling Unit Commencements, Australia (cat. no. 8750.0) on 15 June 2011. The data in this publication are based on a response rate of approximately 94% of the value of building work done during the quarter. The data are subject to revision when returns from the following quarter are processed. Final data for the March quarter 2011 will be released in the next release of this publication, Building Activity, Australia (cat. no. 8752.0) on 19 October 2011.


CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

There are no changes in this issue.


DATA NOTES

Widespread flooding in the eastern states, particularly Queensland, and other natural disasters have not adversely affected the quality of estimates in this release. However, these events may have had an impact on the level of building activity in the March quarter of 2011.

The trend estimates should be interpreted with caution as the underlying behaviour of building activity may be affected by Government stimulus packages, including the "Building the Education Revolution" (BER) program and Social Housing Initiatives as well as other developments associated with global economic conditions. For more details on trend estimates, please see paragraphs 28 to 30 of the explanatory notes.


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.