Today’s National Accounts figures highlight the divergent fortunes of the resources and non-resources sectors of the Australian economy, said the Housing Industry Association, the voice of Australia’s residential building industry.

“Today’s GDP result of 1.0 per cent growth for the September 2011 quarter is positive news but the reality is that without mining and mining-related investment we’d have a soft economy. Virtually all of the quarter’s growth is due to some continued “catch-up” in Queensland and from growth in Western Australia,” said HIA Senior Economist, Andrew Harvey.

“Dwelling investment made no contribution to economic growth this quarter, and is down by 2.9 per cent over the year. Meanwhile non-dwelling construction contributed 1.5 percentage points to quarterly GDP growth and is up by a massive 32.7 per cent over the year”.

“The multi-speed economy is alive and well, and that means real challenges for public policy. It’s just too risky to let the non-resource sectors wither while pinning all the future hopes for the Australian economy on mining alone,” noted Mr Harvey.

Following three quarters of negative growth, new dwelling investment grew by 1.6 per cent in the September quarter to be down by 5.9 per cent over the year. Meanwhile renovations investment was flat in the September 2011 quarter but up by 1.3 per cent over the year. Combined, these results mean that total dwelling investment was down by 2.9 per cent over the year to the September 2011 quarter.

“Structural adjustment should not be used as an excuse to ignore the non-resource sectors that continue to do it tough. Instead of the current imprudent focus on a return to budget surplus the Federal Government should instead be looking at how best to stimulate sectors such as new home building to ensure that we have a truly diversified and resilient economy,” said Mr Harvey.

In terms of the broader economy, the 1.0 per cent quarterly GDP growth takes Australia’s annual growth rate over 2010-11 to a modest 2.5 per cent.