{"id":219727,"date":"2025-05-19T11:20:01","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T01:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=219727"},"modified":"2025-05-19T11:20:02","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T01:20:02","slug":"victoria-to-post-surplus-but-its-1-billion-less-than-expected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=219727","title":{"rendered":"Victoria to post surplus but it\u2019s $1 billion less than expected"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victoria\u2019s budget is on track to post a dramatically smaller surplus than previously expected as the state government struggles to balance cost-of-living relief with rising infrastructure-fuelled debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Treasurer Jaclyn Symes will announce a projected $600 million operating surplus for 2025-26 in Tuesday\u2019s budget which, if delivered, would be the first time Victoria\u2019s day-to-day government sector running costs have been in the black since before 2020\u2019s COVID-19 lockdowns. The expected surplus is, however, $1 billion smaller than that forecast six months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Symes will also outline projections for an average $1.9 billion operating surplus in the following years, peaking at a forecast $2.4 billion surplus in 2027-28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The positive annual balance sheet will still be overshadowed by the long-term costs Victoria continues to pay for massive infrastructure projects. When this expenditure is taken into account, the cash position of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5lyp9\">budget remains in deficit<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The size of the state\u2019s debt will continue to grow to an expected $187 billion in 2028, but Symes said its share of the overall economy will decline in future budgets. \u201cBy delivering a responsible budget, we can invest more in what matters most to Victorian families,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Symes will also outline projections for an average $1.9 billion operating surplus in the following years, peaking at a forecast $2.4 billion surplus in 2027-28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":219728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[273,999,35],"tags":[993,8,16773],"class_list":["post-219727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-australia-politics","category-breaking-news","tag-melbourne","tag-victoria","tag-victorian-budget-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=219727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219729,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219727\/revisions\/219729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/219728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=219727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=219727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=219727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}