New Treasury head faces Senate grilling

Treasury boss John Fraser will get the chance to expand on his thoughts about the state of the federal budget when he appears before a Senate committee.

Earlier in February, Mr Fraser warned cabinet about the risks of the budget never getting back to surplus.

He and Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens took the unusual step of briefing cabinet about the February 3 official cash rate cut.

The Treasury head reportedly warned that if the government's spending cuts, now held up in the Senate, failed to clear parliament, then the budget was at risk of never getting back to surplus.

Mr Fraser, who took over from Martin Parkinson in January, won't be coming to Senate estimates hearings totally cold.

He was deputy Treasury secretary more than 20 years ago when Paul Keating was treasurer before he switched to the private sector, where he finished up as chairman of European banking giant UBS Global Asset Management.