Queensland's residential building sector has been brought to its knees by rocketing government charges, the credit crisis and a slump in demand from mining towns and holiday hot spots.

Just two years after Queensland boasted of being the nation's top performer for housing, it is now blamed for the lion's share of the spending decline for Australian home construction in the past six months.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the amount of money shelled out on residential building nationally plummeted by $617m to $8.3bn between September and March. Queensland accounted for $587m of that fall.

The Australian