Australia's budgetary position under threat amid crisis

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SYDNEY, Oct 26 (AFP): Australia's Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner admitted today he was unable to predict whether next year's budget would stay in surplus amid the global financial crisis.
Tanner's comments come just two weeks after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd unveiled a 10.4-billion-dollar (6.4 billion US) stimulus plan for the economy to come from this fiscal year's projected 21.7 billion dollar surplus.
He said the government expected the 2008-2009 budget to remain in the black, but was unable to project if the same could be expected the following year.
"We still expect the budget to be in healthy surplus and we would also be aiming for a budget outcome for the following financial year of healthy surplus," Tanner told Channel Ten's 'Meet the Press' programme.
"But by the time we are making those calls, those choices, we'll be into March-April next year, and we've got no basis on which to know exactly what the world economy will look like at that time. So we can't make predictions now."
Tanner said the mining boom and investment from China had made it easy for governments in the past five to seven years to deliver a budget surplus.
But the current turmoil on world financial markets made it "really very difficult to have any clear picture of what the second half of next year or the following year are going to look like," he said.