May 23, 2023: New Zealand’s finance minister has rejected the country’s new budget is aimed at alleviating voters ahead of the country’s subsequent general election in October.

Asked if the budget was a short-term thought process to spend and worry about inflation and high deficits later, Grant Robertson replied: “On no, we’re doing both of those things simultaneously.”

In an exclusive interview on Friday, Robertson said, “I think sometimes finance ministers get problematic of doing all sorts of the views in the time of the election, but therefore, I feel my job here is to support New Zealanders through this tough economic time, but also look to those years ahead with inflation a bit lower.”

His comments come after New Zealand allocated millions for reconstruction following severe weather events and announced measures aimed at helping people cope with the rising cost of living despite a larger-than-anticipated government deficit.

On Thursday, the country forecasted a deficit of 7 billion New Zealand dollars for the year, which will come to the mid of 2023, which relates to a forecast for a shortage of NZ$3.6 billion.

New Zealand is also projected to return to surplus in 2025-2026, a year later than the forecast. The Treasury witnesses inflation slowing to 3.3% by 2024 from the current 6.7% pace.

New Zealand’s Reserve Bank has warned that an improvement in administration spending could add to aggressive inflation that has seen the central bank surge the official cash rate by 500 basis points since October 2021.

“We’ve been pretty targeted, and the living cost helpline that we put out in this budget, particularly as you noted near the young families, and support for health costs and so on,” he had stated.

“We very much had in mind to ensure that this budget contributed to inflation coming down.”