SYDNEY, July 15 (Reuters) - Australia's budget surplus could be larger than initial forecasts, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Monday, as the centre-left Labor government looks set to record its second straight surplus helped by strong employment and high commodity prices.
Figures from Treasury in May showed the government was expected to post a surplus of A$9.3 billion ($6.3 billion) for the fiscal year that ended on June 30. But that could now reach "the middle teens of billions", Chalmers told Channel Nine, ahead of the final figures expected in September.
"The surplus is coming in a bit bigger. This could be the biggest back-to-back surpluses on record," he said.
"The difference is not actually more tax revenue, it's about less spending."
The government posted a A$22.1 billion surplus in the prior fiscal year, so this would mark the first back-to-back budgets in the black in nearly two decades.
Chalmers has been under pressure to curb spending to keep inflation in check, though the government rolled out income tax cuts from July 1 that give low-income earners more breaks. A federal election is due by next May.
"That's just one of the ways that we're helping people with these cost-of-living pressures, but doing it in a meaningful and substantial way, but in a responsible way as well, in the context of handing down a couple of surpluses already to help us in the fight against inflation," Chalmers said. ($1 = 1.4778 Australian dollars)
