“The idea that they would return the budget to surplus is credit positive, but the timing isn’t critical,” Mr Hess said. “There is a lot of political rhetoric around the budget position, but fundamentally, Australia is in pretty good (fiscal) position,” he added.
In Australia, analysts worry that deep cuts to government spending, especially any move to pare back generous publicly-funded welfare programs, could sap consumer confidence and curtail rate-sensitive parts of the economy such as retail sales before they have had time to recover properly"
