Australia's government yesterday said it plans to sell a further $5 billion in Commonwealth bonds. The chief rationale appears to be to invest in corresponding term debt of state and territory governments.The Australian government will thus provide some aid to state governments in accessing the debt capital market in line with lobbying by state treasurers over the last month or so.The timetable over which the Australian Office of Financial Management will conduct the additional $5 billion in bond sales isn't clear.The AOFM already has a program to sell $10.3 billion in term debt during the 2008/09 financial year, including $5 billion in discretionary issues announced in May 2008 (and justified on the grounds of improving the efficiency of the bond market). The AOFM has sold $4.6 billion in Commonwealth securities so far this financial year and may now need to sell more than double that over the remaining six months.Investors seeking AAA-rated, Australian government guaranteed term debt are thus being offered an array of options in the current climate, given the extension of the government guarantee to term debt (and which banks exploited to sell more than $14 billion in securities last week).The Australian government may well need to sell term debt in order to fund its own spending at some stage next year, though the Treasury is yet to confirm independent projections of a budget deficit.