Live: Finance Minister Grant Robertson to give pre-Budget speech in Auckland

Finance Minister Grant Robertson will reveal more details about the coming Budget in a speech to a business audience in Auckland on Friday morning.

Robertson will speak at a breakfast event being held by BNZ around 8am. His speech will be livestreamed by Stuff at the top of this story.

In an earlier pre-Budget speech, on Thursday, Robertson said the Government had found $4billion worth of savings in government spending. He said the Government had “re-doubled” its efforts to trim its spending as the economy cools, but would focus on meeting needs in health, education and housing in May’s Budget.

“It simply has to come first,” he said in an address to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce.

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The $4b saved would be spread across agencies’ existing cost pressures.

“We will detail in full what makes up this number when the Budget is released, but to be clear, these savings have been found across a wide range of areas, some of which have been well publicised already,” he said on Thursday.

“You will see a balanced approach that will also have an eye to a future of high wage, low emission economy that delivers economic security in good times and bad.”

More soon