A teaser for upcoming budgets, clearer direction-setting and more clarity for business agendas heading into the new year are economist Brad Olsen’s predictions for this afternoon's mini-budget.

Finance Minister Nicola Willis will release the new Government's mini-budget, as well as the Half Year Economic & Fiscal Update (HYEFU) at 1pm. Treasury will also release its half-yearly set of economic forecasts.

Describing it as a "mini-mini-mini" budget that will open the Government’s inherited financial books for all to see, the minister has promised to reveal what her government's steps will be to improve the economy.

Talking to Summer Breakfast this morning, Olsen said there would normally be a larger gap between financial forecasts.

"We did, because it was an election year, have that pre-election update, there were some pretty big revisions there," said Olsen.

"Treasury took into account an expectation for much lower tax takes, so the question now was how much tinkering has there been around the edges, what does Treasury think is coming next for the economy."

Of particular interest to Olsen will be tackling the monster issue of inflation and how quickly it's coming down.

He said keen ears will be listening for how high unemployment might get and comments about how long the record migration numbers will continue because of the strain it's putting on the nation's economy.

Olsen said one of Treasury's challenges was to forecast what the economic situation might be while more information continued to be released. This means last week's disturbing GDP figures showing a smaller economy than expected likely haven't been drafted into the announcement.

"But I think the big one for them is looking out over the next year or two - what are they thinking around the international economic climate, how strong are our trading partners going to be - that will affect how our exports are going," he said.

"And I think certainly my read of things are those economic challenges very much remain."

Along with highlighting the challenges, Olsen expects more analysis from Willis on the Government's priorities - in particular some of the “fiscal cliffs” she claims the previous Labour parliament left behind.

"The Treasury will be providing some more information on what is contained in those and other challenges or future risks we might be encountering as a country."

Olsen expects the nation to hear comments from both sides of the spectrum either defending or criticising the use of public funds after the announcement. Some might argue the previous Government was blindsided by world events and unable to do what it planned.

He said a challenge was there had been more and more time-limited projects and politicians had been talking as though they were always going to continue, despite them requiring more funding.

“Look at some of the programmes like lunches in schools, some of the funding for Pharmac," he said.

"Those are some of the areas that the politicians are incredibly unlikely to not fund going into the future, but they weren't actually baked into the forecast."

Olsen expects the best outcome is to improve the listing of which projects were time-sensitive and ensure the country is on the same page over what will and won't get money.

"We don't get into this sort of 'he said, she said' every twelve months or so - but there's a slightly easier list for all of us to digest. That would be a good outcome in my mind."

Olsen was asked what should be in the mini-budget to improve confidence in the economy, to which the economist said re-prioritisation and plans around saving money.

"Everyone's been downplaying expectations about this mini-budget - it started off as a mini-budget and now it's got three minis, we'll see how many minis we can get to by the end of the day," he said.

"Often at times we saw the mini budgets focus on the first 100 days of Government, which gives Treasury and the wider public sector more time to fully understand what they want to do in Government."

In this case, Olsen would expect to see a teaser for some of the bigger changes that would be made in the May Budget announcement, as well as a better explanation of the Government's direction.

"We'll probably get a bit of an idea around the parameters and guardrails of where Government is going," he said.

"For example - we're not expecting to see huge cuts coming through the public sector immediately, the Government is still taking time to make sure they get that right and given we're already in late December - there's not a huge amount of time left, they may want to wait for the full budget in May."

Olsen doesn't expect tax cuts to be touched until mid-July as the coalition Government has already alluded to, but the interest deductibility for landlords policy might be brought forward into this afternoon's announcement.

"I think there is going to be a real focus around delivery," said Olsen.

"The Government was talking a lot on the campaign about how it wanted to get some runs on the board, that's what we'll be looking for today."