Next week promises to bring three tangible, strategic moves from the coalition-led Government as it looks to tackle what Finance Minister Nicola Willis has called the "toxic trifecta".

The past seven days have brought damning reflections of where the nation was left fiscally speaking, starting with the KiwiRail ferry cost blow-out before news broke of auditor general John Ryan's report on irresponsible infrastructure spend.

Then in recent days, it was announced the GDP sat at minus 0.3% which was smaller than economists had previously predicted.

Willis, talking to the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning, laid out what her government faced at present.

"We've got high inflation, high interest rates and a recession, and that's before I mention the current account deficit and the $11.4 billion deficit on the Government books," she said.

"It's bad, Mike, but we can clean it up - we're already at work and we're going to put the country on a much better track economically."

Willis was asked whether the country would see anything material to point to that would show signs of progress in tackling economic hardship - she pointed to three things that would be evidence of moving in the right direction.

"First, we'll be properly opening the books so New Zealanders know where we actually are," she said.

"As you've seen in recent weeks, the Government was hiding a few nasty financial surprises, and the first step is to be very transparent on where we are."

Willis' second step was to show what her government's response would be, describing how it would entail fiscal discipline, getting value for money across parliament expenditure and eliminating waste "that's been able to build up".

"The third thing will be that you'll see a small series of actions we've already taken to put a downpayment on our tax plan, which we'll deliver next year," she said.

"We've already banked some savings and we'll set out how we bank some more so that New Zealanders get some real relief in their bank accounts next year."

Hosking pointed to the economic situation in Argentina, whose leaders suggested their nation would need "shock treatment" to stabilise their market situation. He asked if New Zealand would need a similar approach.

Willis rejected this idea.

"I think it would be wrong to try and fix in one year what has been laid to waste in six."

However, she believed a new approach would be needed to tackle the issue, which she said was due to a failed experiment from the previous Government to find out "what happens if we regulate more, spend more and tax more".

She said the result was a broken economy.

"So we're gonna be the very oppositional of that. We're gonna be taking off regulations and making it easier for businesses to invest and grow," said Willis.

"We're gonna be highly disciplined about each tax dollar we spend - you've already seen our decisiveness on that front, and we're gonna start from the basic premise that if you want people to feel confident in their economy, if you want farmers innovating and you want businesses trying new things, don't cover them in so much tax that they can't see the way out the window."

Hosking asked Willis if she believed the country was in a recession and she pointed at the three quarters of negative growth.

"Look, from the outset in New Zealand it feels like a recession. You've got really high interest rates, you've got inflation and that dark outlook - so I think it has felt very recession-y and the numbers back that up."

Willis also said the banks had cranked up interest rates, which she said is having an effect across the economy and that the data from this week was quite different from what Treasury and the Reserve Bank were expecting.

Both were expecting growth this quarter when instead, there was a contraction.

"It's not for me to tell the Reserve Bank Governer what to do, but I expect the inflation outlook looks quite different when they take into account the start of this week," said Willis.

Hosking asked how the Reserve Bank Governor, Adrian Orr could be relied upon to provide a more positive approach to fighting inflation given his previous work with Grant Robertson – and Willis said she felt confident given she'd changed the Act around what he does.

"Grant gave him a confused mandate that said 'try and do two things at once, please Adrian, go for highest possible employment while going for lowest possible inflation'," said Willis.

"We've said we want you focus on inflation, we'll focus on employment - so he's got a clear mandate."