Last summer’s Queensland floods have added to the Federal Government’s financial woes and made the chances of staying on course for a surplus much harder.

Treasurer Wayne Swan says advanced payments to Queensland to support natural disaster recovery have led to a larger than forecast deficit of $37.1 billion for the 2012 financial year.

Mr Swan says a $2.3 billion increase in natural disaster payments has made the Queensland event the most expensive event in Australia’s history.

“Some of that is a pre-payment and some of it is additional costs, not just for the floods and cyclones of this year, but for floods and cyclones of previous years as well,” he said.

“I think people tend to forget just how big the natural disasters have been in Australia in the past couple of years, culminating in what occurred in Queensland this year. But there is much more expense flowing through to our budget bottom line from other natural disasters as well.”

Mr Swan says the disaster payments were not expected and that is why the Government has added spending of $2.3 billion to the budget forecasts for this financial year.