When the National-led government took office in late 2008, the government’s books were in something of a mess. The Treasury’s projections were for operating deficits of 2 to 3 per cent of GDP each year over the forecast horizon. Since the mid 1990s, under governments led successively by National and by Labour, there had been 14 years in succession of OBEGAL surpluses (a very very small one in the June 1999 year). After all those surpluses there was, of course, not much debt (the Decenber 2008 HYEFU shows net Crown debt for the just-completed year at 0.0% of GDP). It certainly wasn’t, in any substantive economic sense, a fiscal “crisis”, but it was pretty substantially unsettling, both politically and at The Treasury (where I was working at the time).
There was a great deal of rhetoric about Michael Cullen, Minister of Finance in the outgoing government, having squandered the fruits…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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