KEY NOTES
- Government debt is NOT a top 10 voter issue (see www.kpi.nz), but it influences the Government’s ability to fund public services and respond to future economic shocks.
- There are several measures of government debt, each including or excluding different assets and liabilities. Net core Crown debt is a long-established measure, useful for comparing debt across governments. It is also the Coalition’s official headline debt measure.
- Unlike the controversial net debt measure introduced in Budget 2022, net core Crown debt does not subtract the value of the NZ Super Fund.
- Debt as a percentage of GDP is generally considered the better way to measure government debt as it accounts for inflation and population changes.
KEY INSIGHTS
- Net core Crown debt more than doubled under Labour, from <20% to >40% of GDP.
- Net core Crown debt has stabilised ~41% of GDP under the Coalition.
KEY QUESTION
1. Are you happy with this level of Government debt?
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Have your say
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FULL DATA ANALYSIS
Please contact us if you would like the complete data set and research.
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SOURCE
- https://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/efu/pre-election-economic-and-fiscal-update-2026 > Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update 2026 – Charts and Data > go to the second to last worksheet called “Fiscal Time Series”
Data published by The Treasury
(c) Crown Copyright
Licensed for use under the creative commons attribution licence (BY) 4.0
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OTHER NOTES:
- The data shown is for the financial year ended 30 June.
- The 2026 figure is an unaudited actual from Treasury’s September 2026 PREFU (Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Update).
- We started the graph in 2004/05 because:
- Treasury identifies 2005 onwards as using a consistent PBE accounting basis, improving comparability.
- It provides more than 20 years of data across successive National-led and Labour-led Governments.
- Blue and red line colours represent each government based on the colour of the lead party.
- Additional notes from Treasury can be found in the data source pages below.
- All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.
Thank you to the Factors who helped pull this together.
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