Nicola Willis warns of fiscal ‘snakes and snails’ – her first mini-budget will be a test of NZ’s no-surprises finance rules

New finance minister Nicola Willis has claimed she was blindsided by the state of the government’s books. Days after stepping into the role, she said:

The outgoing government has left us with some nasty surprises. There are some fiscal risks that are pretty significant that we’re going to have to work hard to manage.

Willis has promised to deliver a mini-budget before Christmas to show the “true state of the New Zealand economy and the government’s finances”.