Finance Minister Bill English has written three bleak budgets and if National wins the election his next one isn't likely to be much different.
The big challenges during a second term in office will be continuing to rebalance the economy, handling the impact of the Christchurch earthquake and ongoing reform of the public service, he told NZN in an interview.
"We've spent a lot of time getting a policy framework that shifts us away from debt-driven consumption to a more export-driven economy, but that is really only just getting under way," he says.
"Getting some momentum into that adjustment - continued increases in savings, building business confidence and more jobs in the tradeable sector - it's going to be quite a challenge."
Mr English says the impact of the earthquake is going to make that challenge more difficult.
"While we're trying to get resources moved into the export sector, the Christchurch rebuild is going to be sucking resources into a massive construction job.
"And we've got to keep our eye on the long term - that rebuild will peak and then run off, and we will still need to have a stronger export economy."
Mr English's third budget in May this year demanded significant savings from the public service, and department heads will find the heat still on them.
"The next budget will reconfirm for the public sector that they're on tight rations for a long time," he says.
"I think they're coming along pretty well, I think there's a strong sense of ownership in the senior civil service ... some of them see some big opportunities, others are having to work hard on it."
Asked whether he expects more public service positions to go, Mr English replies: "Yes. We will see continued reduction in back office costs, given there are more new technologies to help drive that, and we will start seeing a stronger focus on frontline efficiency."
Mr English's election year budget broke the mould - it was a zero budget, with no new money and increased spending in some areas coming from savings in others.
In the first year of a second term, will he deliver the same strong medicine?
"I wouldn't want to predict that, we haven't got into detailed specifics about it," he says.
"But it will be tight."
Mr English says he will still be looking at savings to fund programmes.
"We don't want to stand still, to shut down.
"In each budget we have worked on shifting resources around ... it will be a similar approach."
Mr English says one thing will be clear.
"We won't be able to just keep paying more and more for the same services, which is what some of our bigger public services have got used to."
But there won't be what Mr English describes as "mindless, across the board cuts".
"You can end up with some services really losing capacity, so we have spent quite a lot of time working with the leadership of the large Government departments to get their strategy clear, what they are really trying to achieve."
Driving the Government's austerity is the fundamental goal of getting back into surplus by 2014/15 after running some of the biggest deficits in the country's history following the global recession.
"At the moment we're on track for that," Mr English says.
"But there are any number of circumstances that would put pressure on that goal - potential disruption in European financial markets, a slowdown in developed economies, and maybe China.
"We are going to have to really focus to achieve that target."
It is one of the remarkable aspects of the current political scene that the Government is still very popular, despite Mr English's tight grip on its purse strings.
"There has been a shift in public attitudes," he says.
"The most impressive aspect of this recession has been the resilience of households and businesses when they've had very unambiguous messages from the rest of the world about the risk of debt, and they've reacted to that in a pragmatic and effective way in their own environment.
"Public expectations have shifted quite significantly and that enabled the Government to do things like the zero budget in an election year - the public know that if someone is offering them free stuff, they're having them on."
Mr English admits the speed at which households cut spending surprised him - and reduced his revenue more quickly than he had expected.
"But I think it is happening in about as measured a way as it could," he says.
"There's been a lot of pressure, particularly on small businesses, but generally households haven't done so badly through the recession - I think they feel they're in a manageable adjustment, it's not like they took a big hit and are trying to bounce back."
New Zealanders no longer expect someone else to fix their problems, Mr English says.
"I think most know that if they just stick at it, they and the country will get back to a reasonable position.
"I think they're in pretty good shape for it - we've got to roll up our sleeves and get on with it, because no one is coming to help us."
NZN