Hard working Kiwis will be shocked by confirmation today that Labour would mortgage our future when we are already borrowing an average $240 million a week for the next four years, Finance Minister Bill English says.

"The question for Phil Goff is whether he still has confidence in his finance spokesman, who this morning said Labour would borrow even more money, without regard to already soaring debt and persistent budget deficits.

"On radio this morning, his finance spokesman said: ‘New Zealand's problem cannot be primarily that it has a yawning budget deficit, because it does not'.

"It was plainly ridiculous to then claim that New Zealand doesn't have a debt problem because it's below Japanese levels at 200 per cent of gross domestic product," Mr English says.

"The fact is that Treasury forecasts in December predicted a cash deficit of $10.1 billion in the current year to June 30.

"Labour is in cloud cuckoo land by ignoring our significant debt problem - a problem of Labour's own making. We actually face another six years of Budget deficits, which this Government is working hard to turn around.

"Furthermore, New Zealand's habit of spending more than it earns has accelerated in the past five years.

"Our total external debt - including households, businesses and the Government - has ballooned from $90 billion to about $170 billion since 2000. This is forecast to approach $250 billion by 2014.

"This is clearly New Zealand's single biggest vulnerability.

"No amount of cosmetic surgery can hide the fact that Labour's reckless economic policies are stuck in the past. There is no evidence of fresh thinking - in fact, precisely the opposite is true when their answer is to saddle future generations of New Zealanders with more debt.

"This dangerous policy prescription would drive up interest rates, hurt exporters, cost thousands of jobs and ultimately bankrupt the country."

The Budget next month will focus on getting faster economic growth, sustainable and higher paying jobs and getting the Government's finances back into shape.

"We will live within the $1.1 billion annual operating allowance for new spending we have set ourselves, and restrict annual increases in this figure to 2 per cent from 2011/12," Mr English says.

"And we will find another $1.8 billion of low quality spending between now and 2014 - on top of the $2 billion of lower quality spending identified last year for improving frontline public services.

"This money will be directed into higher priority initiatives such as better healthcare services, better education and keeping New Zealanders safe."

By contrast, even before today's confirmation of its plan to run up more debt, Labour's spending policies amounted to at least $6 billion, all of which would have to be borrowed.

"I issued the following table of Labour's unfunded spending commitments last year - and the list gets longer every time Phil Goff or his finance spokesman open their mouths," Mr English says.