Although TVNZ coverage is not YET online, there were summary reviews in the NBR and NZ Herald.

The February Building Consent figures were expected to be low, and they were, however not a lot has been made of the resilience of the Non residential figures:

The value of non-residential building consents was $382 million in February 2009, and increase of 5.9% compared with February 2008. Six of the 11 building types recorded increases.

The largest changes for February 2009 compared with February 2008 were:

• Hostels and boarding houses, up $41 million 
• Social, cultural and religious buildings, up $31 million
• Hospitals and nursing homes, down $30 million.

If we have a look at the Trendline (thanks Rawlinson's Media), we see a surprising picture (I suppose we do need to be wary about the number of projects that ACTUALLY go ahead, and are not pulled due to lack of funding.)

(Sourced from Rawlinsons Media, based on Statistics NZ data).