The larger-than-expected surplus for this financial year of $2.1 billion could be a one-off with surpluses for the following years being more muted. Economists Ganesh Nana from Berl and Cameron Bagrie from ANZ discuss the numbers.
"There's money in the kitty. The real issue is how much of that money's going to get eaten up for health, education..." Mr Bagrie says.
"The interesting words in the narrative is the Treasury are talking more often about capacity constraints, which indicates they are worried about in particular the inability of the building sector to actually do the amount of activity that's actually expected."
