Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the government is "determined" to return the federal budget to surplus, despite a soft jobs market and reduced expectations for global growth.
"One thing you can see from around the world, it is the right time for government to be clear on their fiscal strategies and we are clear on ours," she told Sky News.
"We are determined to return the budget to surplus."
The government has forecast a $1.5 billion surplus in 2012/13, following on from an expected $37 billion deficit this year.
Ms Gillard said the fundamentals were strong and the economy would keep growing.
"Our economy is growing, we have room to move on monetary policy, that is in the province of the Reserve Bank," she said.
Treasury currently projects gross domestic product (GDP) to expand by 3.25 per cent in both 2011/12 and 2012/13.
The World Bank on Wednesday forecast a global slowdown in 2012, saying there could be a recession worse than that experienced during the 2008-09 financial crisis over the next two years.
As well, Australia's economy shed 100 jobs in calendar 2011, which was the first year since 1992 that more jobs were lost than created.
But Ms Gillard said the local job market compared favourably to those of other developed nations.
"We have low unemployment, Australians have among the best job prospects in the world and we as a government will be working with those industries under pressure including manufacturing," she said.
"We are an economy with strong fundamentals, we have got growth, we have low unemployment.
"Look around the world - we're talking unemployment at just over five per cent, in the Eurozone they are talking around 10 per cent, in the US they are talking about over eight per cent."
The unemployment rate remained at 5.2 per cent in December.
