After the Global Financial Crisis it took a "fair while" to get debt down, said Joyce. But that was because it was both the GFC and the Canterbury earthquakes.
Joyce said how big the debt got would depend on what the Government chose to spend the money on but he said they had to provide more support for businesses impacted by the shutdowns.
"I would expect to see that today."
He those hit by a 70 or 80 per cent drop in revenue were the ones that really needed help.
"We could end up tearing up a whole lot of New Zealand's infrastructure, those small businesses, unless the support is there."
Joyce said the Government would also need be looking at what it needed to do to stimulate the economy. But that was challenging because if it just gave out cash a lot of people would probably just stick it in the bank.
"So they have to be careful there."
Stimulating the economy was challenging, he said. Spraying money everywhere was not the solution and would be something we'd regret later.
"This thing is going to run a long time," he said.
He said it's about the next two years, "not the next five minutes".
Fundamentally, he said the Government couldn't know much more than the rest of us know about overseas conditions or the behaviour of people in a post-Covid environment.
On Winston Peters upsetting China Joyce said New Zealand had to be diplomatic with its big trading partners.
"We are more reliant on China whether we like to be or not."
He said China was recovering more quickly because they went in earlier and they were our largest trading partner and Australia was our second largest.
Winston Peters has been highly critical of China. Photo / File.
"The uncomfortable reality for both NZ and Australia is there are many things about China people don't like, and it is entirely understandable, but they are also hugely important to the world economy and world demand."
He said in the same way we couldn't smack the US on the nose every five minutes we can't do the same for China either.
New Zealand just had to be diplomatic and sensible for its own good.
"NZ, we are a small player, we have to recognise that and do sensible things from our perspective while hanging onto principle."
Turning political?
Hosking asked whether there was room for National to criticise the Government's approach or whether the situation just too big a mess.
Joyce there would be a mixture of both because there are choices in how you rebuild the economy and some of the rhetoric coming out of Government suggests they want to change the world philosophically.
"I would argue you need to look at what is changing and then what you need to do.
Consumer demand is much more important than what any politician in Wellington thinks.
He said consumers would likely to continue to buy more online and travel less but those trends were already happening.
"It will just be accelerated."
"It's important Government doesn't look political today. Yes, there is an election coming up in three months, but they have been given a lot of latitude by the public - it's a bit above politics."
He said if the Government turned around and gave money to the Greens or NZ First, it would get the same backlash the Opposition has had.
"If we are going into huge debt there won't be much tolerance for boon-doggles for coalition partners."
