Australia's Treasurer Wayne Swan said the aim of authorities to cut the federal budget in order to return to a surplus by the next fiscal year will be good to tame the country's rising inflation.

Mr Swan, who will deliver his fourth budget and the first under Prime Minister Julia Gillard later today, has promised a surplus by 2012-13.

Achieving a surplus would make Australia the first advanced economy in the world to exit budget deficits, he said in a press briefing early today in Canberra.

The treasurer made the comments as he made his last public media appearance before handing down the budget at 7.30pm (AEST).

''Tonight's budget will get us back in the black,'' Mr Swan told reporters in Canberra of forward estimates showing the budget returning to surplus in 2012/13.

''We will come back to surplus before any other major advanced economy.''

The budget would get more Australians into jobs and share the opportunities of the mining boom, Mr Swan said, ''spreading opportunity to every postcode in this country.''

Mr Swan said the budget would be based on the same economic responsibility that allowed Australia to limit the impact of the global financial crisis.

Mr Swan, who is also looking at a new budget numbers as the fiscal year ends in June, is targeting a lowered welfare allocation for high income earners with health insurance and in spite a planned cut of about 1,000 jobs in the civilian defence industry in the next three years.

Skilled migration

Part of the government plan led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard is to create some 500,000 jobs that would lower Australia's unemployment rate to 4.5 percent from 4.9.

"The most important thing to note is that net overseas migration in this country has come down dramatically," Swan, 56, told reporters in Canberra today. "We will put forward in the budget, our estimates for the future."