An economist is warning Covid-19 will leave New Zealand with its highest amount of debt in its history.

The Global Financial Crisis resulted in New Zealand’s house prices falling 7 per cent with unemployment levels at 6.5 and the fallout from Covid-19 is looking worse

Economist Cameron Bagrie says the right steps are being taken by Government.

"The Crown's got a big balance sheet; borrow, load it up, get as much money as you can in the near term into people's pockets, into businesses. Try to support or minimise the amount of destruction we are currently seeing in lockdown mode." 

However, he says the country will see debt numbers to the end of this that New Zealanders have never seen before. 

Bagrie says that the next generation of taxpayers will be saddled with possibly higher taxes or governments that will be careful about what they spend.