New Zealand and Australia are charting different courses on their way out of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Australia's federal government has revealed a big spend-up in its budget overnight, taking on more debt to create a quarter of a million jobs over the next two years.

Former Finance Minister Steven Joyce says next week's New Zealand budget is likely to take a similar approach.

But he told Mike Hosking while our Government is ending oil drilling and introducing Fair Pay Agreements, Australia is avoiding major changes to its economy.

"In New Zealand, we are making a lot of changes to regulation and laws to change the economy post-pandemic whereas the Australians are looking as much as possible to get back to normal."

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