Bulletin: Ratings On Australia's State Of Victoria Unchanged After State Budget Announcement

MELBOURNE (Standard&Poor's) May 5, 2015—Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that its 'AAA/Stable/A-1+' issuer credit ratings on the Australian State of Victoria are not immediately affected by the Victorian government's announcement of its fiscal year ending June 30, 2016 budget. The 2015-2016 budget seeks to address the government's election promises with higher spending on education, health, and frontline services. We expect that the government will remain fiscally disciplined to ensure the general government accrual operating position remains in surplus over the forecast period. In our view, the Victorian government's budgetary performance is likely to remain broadly consistent with its recent history, by achieving operating surpluses at the nonfinancial public sector level. We expect the government to incur

...MELBOURNE (Standard & Poor's) May 5, 2015--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that its '###/Stable/A-1+' issuer credit ratings on the Australian State of Victoria are not immediately affected by the Victorian government's announcement of its fiscal year ending June 30, 2016 budget. The 2015-2016 budget seeks to address the government's election promises with higher spending on education, health, and frontline services. We expect that the government will remain fiscally disciplined to ensure the general government accrual operating position remains in surplus over the forecast period. In our view, the Victorian government's budgetary performance is likely to remain broadly consistent with its recent history, by achieving operating surpluses at the nonfinancial public sector level. We expect the government to incur after-capital account deficits, on average, of less than 5% of total revenues between 2013 and 2017. In addition, we expect the state's total tax-supported debt to reduce...

Bulletin