Construction of new houses in Queensland grew by almost 23 per cent over the year to December quarter 2015, reflecting stronger confidence in the state’s economy under the Palaszczuk Government, Treasurer Curtis Pitt said today.

New house construction in Queensland increased by 10.8 per cent in the December quarter, in contrast to a 2.5 per cent fall in house construction nationally, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

At $1.53 billion in the December quarter, house construction was up 22.9 per cent on a year earlier under the LNP, Mr Pitt said.

Construction of medium to high-density housing experienced a 10.3 per cent increase in the quarter and a 38.1 per cent rise over the year, to $1.2 billion in the December quarter.

“No doubt the LNP will find some aspect of these figures to use as part of its four-year campaign to talk down our state and push its one-point plan of asset sales,” Mr Pitt said.

“After all, yesterday the Shadow Treasurer said unemployment had risen when the hard data shows 71,700 have been created under the Palaszczuk Government and the trend jobless rate is now 6.1 per cent compared to 6.6 percent when the LNP left office.

“The LNP continues its cold-blooded campaign to destroy business confidence in our state, even though their own Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull recently cited the latest National Australia Bank survey and said: ‘Confidence is highest in Queensland followed by Tasmania and New South Wales in trend terms.’”

Mr Pitt said the latest figures came on the heels of recent data which showed a steady pipeline of housing construction in Queensland.

“Last week ABS data showed a 53.6 per cent increase in investor finance commitments in Queensland for new housing in 2015,” he said.

“And we have had four consecutive monthly rises in building approvals.

“It all points to a strong pipeline of work for Queensland’s construction industry.

“Every one of these new homes and apartments provides jobs for local businesses and local tradies.

“The housing industry growth comes as confidence increases in the Queensland economy and the Palaszczuk Government’s economic plan.

“Queensland has had the highest business confidence of any mainland state for seven months in a row.

“That confidence is backed up by our record on providing jobs, with 71,700 new jobs created since the Palaszczuk Government was elected 12 months ago.

“That’s an average 2360 new full-time jobs every month, compared to the 330 full-time jobs lost every month under the previous Government.

“Unemployment is at a two-year low of 6.1 per cent – down from 6.7 per cent under the previous Government.

Overall, total construction work fell 1.4 per cent due to the wind down in engineering construction on the $60 billion LNG industry, which has moved from a period of construction to production.