Leader Christopher Luxon said if the government’s books were not in order, the country was vulnerable to economic shocks.<\/p>\n
He criticised Labour during Sunday’s announcement, blaming the former government for racking up debt as it tackled the Covid-19 pandemic, and eroding a buffer that was necessary for dealing with the next major shock.<\/p>\n
Infometrics chief economist Brad Olsen said National’s focus on fiscal discipline was encouraging, but it was simply committing to continuing the coalition’s current fiscal strategy.<\/p>\n
“The focus from the National Party of trying to get debt … down to below 40 percent is probably the least ambitious they could have possibly been,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Previously, we’ve heard the National Party talk a lot more about trying to get debt back to 20 percent of GDP, and so [it’s a] step in the right direction and necessary step, but not nearly as far, or as, I guess, expansive of a policy or position that they could have taken, and have taken before.”<\/p>\n
Olsen said the aim to lowering government spending to 30 percent of GDP was about right.<\/p>\n
![\"Brad](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/4L3XDBH_B_Olsen_3_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Infometrics chief economist Brad Olsen<\/p>\n
RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone<\/p>\n
He questioned what National might cut, given it had effectively ruled out new taxes, limiting its revenue.<\/p>\n
“That only leaves the ability to limit expenses and tone down government spending as the options available,” he said.<\/p>\n
Olsen said New Zealand’s debt was lower than a number of comparable countries, but it needed to be, given it was a small island nation with fewer taxpayers, was reliant on trading partners and carried a greater risk of natural disasters.<\/p>\n
“We always want to have that lower level of debt capacity, so that we’ve got the space to respond to the next pandemic, the next natural disaster, whatever it might be.”<\/p>\n
Spending to support the country through the pandemic worked initially, but it went on too long and had been difficult to unwind, Olsen said.<\/p>\n
Labour’s finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said her party did what was necessary to buffer the economic shock.<\/p>\n
She said National’s rules would simply continue the government’s current fiscal strategy, which was failing New Zealanders.<\/p>\n
Edmonds pointed to unemployment reaching an 11-year high<\/a> and a surge in the number of people making KiwiSaver withdrawals due to financial hardship<\/a>.<\/p>\n ACT Party leader David Seymour said National could only achieve its budget goals with his party’s help.<\/p>\n He claimed victory over cutting costs on a number of initiatives this term.<\/p>\n “Without ACT, the taxpayer would be on the hook for billions more, but even more savings are needed.<\/p>\n “To make these budget goals real will require ACT at the Cabinet table.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National’s debt reduction target is the least ambitious it could possibly be, says a leading economist. If it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-564078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}