Australia shares slip on weak resources, Westpac's Kelly retires

* Fourth day of declines

* Commodities prices lower

* Westpac falls on CEO departure (Adds analysis, quotes, stocks on the move)

By Byron Kaye

SYDNEY/WELLINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Australian shares fell for a forth consecutive session on Thursday as sliding gold, oil, coal and iron ore prices pulled down the heavyweight resources sector.

Miners, energy stocks and mining services firms were among the biggest losers in the market.

Westpac Banking Corp, Australia's second largest retail bank, led financials lower after chief executive officer Gail Kelly, who presided over five record annual profits, said she will retire in 2015.

Investors also paused ahead of key Chinese industrial production data expected later in the day after flat performances from offshore equities markets overnight gave little momentum.

At 0100 GMT the S&P/ASX 200 index was down 0.5 percent or 28.15 points at 5434.0. The benchmark has lost t.wo percent since Nov. 7.

BHP Billiton (NYSE: BBL - news) was down 0.1 percent at A$33.18 while Rio Tinto (Xetra: 855018 - news) . Oil major Santos lost 2 percent to A$12.19 while gold firm Newcrest Mining was off by 0.5 percent at A$8.94.

Westpac dipped 1.3 percent to A$32.91 amid uncertainty about the company's transition to new CEO internal appointment Brian Hartzer.

"Historically after a CEO change at Westpac there's been a 12 percent (share price) decline over 6-12 months," said Tristan K'Nell, head of trading at Quay Securities. "There might be a bit of downside but the company's in a pretty good position,"

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Other OTC: CBAUF - news) lost 0.7 percent to A$81.27, while Australia and New Zealand Banking Group shedded 0.5 percent to A$32.05 and National Australia Bank dropped 0.8 percent to A$32.40.

New Zealand's benchmark NZX50 index pulled back modestly, easing nearly 0.4 percent to 5,466.94, as investors took a breather from the market's record-breaking run of the past month.

Among the top-10 stocks, only Auckland International Airport and software developer Xero managed to push higher.

Small cap tech stocks were stand outs among the gainers, notably GPS chip maker Rakon, which gained 5.8 percent to NZ$0.36 after reporting a greatly reduced first half loss.

(Editing by Eric Meijer)