This week, National finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis delivered her first major speech since taking on the role in March.
Intended as a scene-setter for the Budget, the speech was also meant to set out Willis's vision for the role, often seen as the most important Cabinet post after the job of prime minister.
The speech, delivered to the Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce, was focused on restoring "discipline" to government policy and spending - a line National has been rolling out for months.
But it also established a theme Willis wants to bring to the role, which is that she would think about the "economic future" she hopes to bequeath to her four primary school-aged children.
"I want our kids to face a secure economic future here in the country I love. I want New Zealand to be a place where if they work hard and acquire good skills, they can expect to experience good living standards, not so different from those in other developed countries just a plane ride away," Willis said.
Speaking to the Herald, Willis agreed inflation was an issue that would likely dominate her time as Finance spokeswoman, and her time as finance minister if National wins the 2023 election.
Willis said she was "absolutely" ready to be an inflation-fighting finance minister.
"It is an economic issue that is absolutely pervasive whether you are a low income New Zealander, whether you are reliant on the Government for superannuation, whether you are a taxpayer or a business, inflation is a major problem so fixing it has to be a priority for the finance minister," Willis said.
Willis said she had gone back through Hansard and reading oral questions to previous finance ministers. Inflation has not been a political issue in New Zealand for three decades, largely because there has not been any persistent inflation in that time.
However, Willis's digging divulged some exchanges on the topic of interest rates.
"The issue of interest rates and where they sit and the prospect of inflation has been the subject of debate - but that debate has been anchored in some orthodoxy in New Zealand in terms of our monetary policy framework and the independent role that has been set for the Reserve Bank in managing inflation rate and targeting price stability.
"So we start there and we start with what has worked," Willis said.
She said one of the places she would start with when it came to tackling inflation was to end the "experiment" with the Bank's dual employment and inflation mandate and return to a single mandate of targeting price stability.
In the 1980s and 1990s, finance ministers relentlessly targeted inflation by reducing spending and establishing the current Reserve Bank framework.
Spending as a share of the economy shrunk in Labour's first term in the 1980s, before the 1987 election, and again during National's first term in the 1990s.
But those cuts made both Labour and National horrifically unpopular.
Willis suggested she would not be an inflation-fighting minister in the 1980s or 1990s mould.
"I think what any finance minister must do is take New Zealanders with them and carefully lay out what their priorities are, what judgments they are making and why they are striking the balance they are," Willis said.
"I feel really confident right now in National's argument that this Government is not striking the balance," she said.
But she said this would not extend to embracing unpopularity to the extent of those 1980s and 1990s governments.
"I'm a politician - I don't intend to be making the National party unpopular. We are responsible economic and financial managers," Willis said.
One question Willis' speech cast little light on was how National intended to fund its tax cut promise.
National wants to adjust the current tax brackets for inflation, and has challenged the Government to implement such a policy in the current Budget.
It wants to take a similar policy to the 2023 election, along with a promise to repeal the 39 per cent rate of income tax, the extension of the bright-line test, and Labour's abolition of the ability to deduct interest costs from investment properties.
Such a policy has been loosely costed at more than $3b, quite a lot for a party that has never delivered a Budget with an operating allowance of more than $2b. National's new annual operating spending in each of its Budgets in its final term totalled just over $4b (a figure which excludes the accumulation of each allowance).
Given this history, there has been some doubt over whether National would follow through on its tax commitments.
Willis's speech hinted at something of an out, should National wish to backtrack on the promise.
She said the party would take a tax and income plan to the election, which "takes account of the economic conditions New Zealand confronts next year".
This opens up the prospect of a U-turn on tax cuts should economic conditions deteriorate, as they are expected to do.
Willis denied a possible U-turn noting leader Christopher Luxon said the party was committed to repealing all stated taxes in its first term.
"Chris has previously committed that we will be making those reversals in our first term, that remains the case," Willis said.
Willis also noted that most fiscal plans, including most budget bids, cover periods of four years - that is one year longer than the three-year Parliamentary term.
"What we are taking is a responsible position; there are a range of tax changes we will want to make.
"We will want to present a fully costed tax and income plan to the electorate … that will be looking at the term that is in front of us, typically a fiscal plan looks four years ahead, and we will want to be taking into account the condition of the books ahead of the election, what the spending track is, what the growth forecasts are, what the inflation forecasts are - a range of economic metrics to decide what is appropriate," Willis said.
"The fiscal plans do tend to look into out years," Willis said, but she added National's policy was still to repeal all the stated taxes in its first term.
She said this plan would focus on the "squeezed middle". National has been facing pressure from Chris Hipkins and Grant Robertson in question time in the last fortnight over whether its policy to axe the 39 per cent rate of tax on incomes over $180,000 would help the "squeezed middle" or not.