When a new government takes office and decides remedial economic action is needed, strategy usually focuses on getting it out of the way as quickly as possible.

Swift implementation, it is hoped, will mean that in three years' time voters will have either forgotten about it or become used to it.

A good example was the "mother of all budgets" that followed National's election win in 1990, although in that case it had such far-reaching effects that despite having the longest possible recovery period the party only just managed to retain power in the 1993 election.

Finance Minister Bill English has taken a course opposite to the one dictated by political wisdom -- his next two budgets, by his own admission, will very likely be more severe than the one he presented on Thursday.

"The budget significantly increases operating funding and capital investment for public services, fulfilling National's election commitments and meeting the costs of growing demand," he said.

"However, the public sector must consider how it will adapt to tighter budgets and smaller or no increases in the future."

And at another point in his speech: "There will be ongoing restraint on future spending increases ... it is clear that future deficits are far from temporary."

Under the circumstances, English didn't have much choice.

A slash and burn budget -- which this one isn't -- would have worsened the impact of the international recession and thrown even more people out of work.

And the Government has to grapple with more than just the spending to debt ratio which was balanced in the budget to avoid a ratings downgrade, and in fact it gained some breathing space with a modest improvement from Standard and Poor's.

The problem, as English described it, is the longer-term weaknesses in New Zealand's economy.

"Imbalances in our economy have been laid bare by the global recession," he said.

"What appeared to be permanent surpluses have rapidly swung to large deficits...15 years of surpluses may be followed by a decade of deficits."

The budget figures show spending increases have for years been way out of line with economic growth.

In the five years to June 2009, government spending increased by 49 percent while tax revenue over the same period increased by 25 percent.

"No government, business or household can survive for long with expenditure growing at twice the rate of income," English said.

If that trend continued, government debt would reach 48 percent of GDP by 2013 and 70 percent by 2023.

That equals about $45,000 for every New Zealander, or $180,000 of government debt for every family of four.

In addition to this, households have been on a borrow and spend binge for the last eight years.

Banks were using cheap foreign money to loan as much as they could as quickly as they could, underpinned by rapidly rising house prices.

It was happening in most developed countries. It was party time and few people seemed to consider that, inevitably, it had to end.

The collapse of the sub-prime market in the United States brought down the house of cards and, as English said in his budget speech, New Zealanders are going to have to make changes because the world has changed.

"The world has moved very quickly from the best of times to the worst of times," English said.

"Ten years of economic growth and expansive appetites for debt and government spending have ended."

Turning these imbalances around is going to be far from easy and almost certainly painful but the Government has to do it or the country will slide into ever-worsening circumstances.

On the bright side, although it isn't much more than a glimmer, the Treasury is forecasting the economy will hit the bottom this year and by March next year output will have shrunk by 1.7 percent.

As growth resumes, the economy is expected to expand by 1.8 percent, 2.9 percent and 4 percent in the three years to March 2013.

As New Zealand is in a lot better shape than many other countries, and with the Government focusing on ways to improve international competitiveness, it should emerge from the recession stronger than it went into it.

That is if the Treasury has got its figures right, which it hasn't in the past. It has tended to be too optimistic, it has misjudged the severity and speed of the international recession.

Like its counterparts in other countries, it has been on a very steep learning curve and, hopefully, it has got a better grip on the realities of the recession than it had last year.

As for English, he faces the prospect of writing two more bleak budgets and the second will be just a few months out from the 2011 election.

Between now and then the Government has to persuade the country that it has the answers, that it can balance an imbalanced economy, that it can create jobs and that it can make New Zealand stronger and more competitive.

Pork barrel politics, like budget surpluses, are history. As English says, the world has changed and New Zealanders are going to have to live with that. It is going to be up to the Government to show the way.