Interest rates rose by a small margin at the first government debt sale since a credit-rating downgrade by Fitch and Standard & Poor's last Friday.
Almost $1 billion worth of bids for $400 million of short-term Treasury Bills was received at Tuesday's tender.
The interest rate on the debt was between one and two basis points higher than the previous tender for debt of the same maturities.
OnePath interest-rate specialist Graham Ansell says a better test of investors' appetite will come at an auction of longer-term bonds later this week.
