Construction activity fell back further during the September quarter, preliminary estimates show.

In its latest Construction Work Done report, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said that on a seasonally adjusted basis, the dollar value of work done on building and civil construction dropped by 0.4 percent in the September quarter to come in at $50.850 billion

At this level, activity is down 7.0 percent compared with the September quarter of 2018.

Leading the decline are the home building and civil sectors.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, activity in residential construction contracted by 3.0 percent in the September quarter and was down 10.1 percent compared with near-record levels one year earlier – albeit with the value of residential work done ($29.704 billion) remaining at healthy levels by historic standards.

In civil construction, activity contracted by 0.2 percent during the quarter (seasonally adjusted) to be down 9.6 percent year-on-year.

Detail about the make-up of this will not be available until the ABS releases its Engineering Construction Activity report in January.

Nevertheless, it is likely that decline in civil work at an aggregate level simply represents the completion of large resource projects and obscures improving conditions in road and rail construction.

Indeed, in the June quarter – the most recent for which detailed data is available – the pipeline of work for road and rail construction sat at near record levels.

Despite this, Housing Industry Association said governments should look to make further infrastructure investments.

“A boost in spending on infrastructure by state and federal governments as announced in this year’s budgets was expected to offset the decline in the home building sector and absorb the excess labour from the building industry,” HIA Economist Angela Lillicrap said.

“This hasn’t happened with engineering construction work declining by 9.6 per cent on same quarter last year.

“For the past five years home building pulled the economy forward. The home building industry is now dependent upon a strong national economy to pull it forward. Infrastructure spending can help drive this growth.

“Today’s data – which shows a significant decline in engineering and construction work – tells us that the announced investment in infrastructure has not yet commenced.

“This begs the question where and when is the infrastructure spending going to occur?”