The Government has set a bold target to get unemployment - which it sees spiking to 9.8 per cent - back to where we started (at 4.2 per cent) in just two years.
Westpac senior economist Michael Gordon described that as "extremely ambitious".
But Robertson has allocated the funds to support New Zealanders through the downturn.
And cleverly he has not allocated them all.
This is a big-spending Budget - technically the single-biggest spending package in New Zealand's history.
But since the lockdown of New Zealand's borders in March, it was always going to be.
It takes total Covid-19-related spending to $63 billion, with $20b set aside for the months ahead.
With Government bond issuance of $190b over the next five years and net debt to GDP peaking at more than 53 per cent it is bigger than many economists expected.
"More massive than expected, an extraordinary response to extraordinary times," wrote Westpac's Gordon.
The uncertain nature of the ongoing pandemic means Robertson was always going to be vulnerable to criticism that his focus is too long (not enough emergency support) or too short (where's the road map to recovery?).
Already we are hearing a chorus of complaints from both ends of that spectrum.
In the end, National appears to have opted for the former approach, critical of the large amount of unallocated funds.
The Government is walking a tightrope with this Budget. Photo / Getty Images
It's clearly a matter of degree. Allocating all the fiscal firepower now would have been unthinkable.
It's not hard to sympathise with the Opposition's concerns that this gives the Government enormous headroom to tweak policy as required in the run-up to the election.
National can and should fight hard on issues around the quality of the spending.
But it puts them on the back foot.
Whether this Budget makes business happy is a loaded question - likely to be determined by the viability of the businesses and by their access to support.
There is no way around the fact there will be business failures ahead as the wage subsidy focus tightens.
But equally, any business person with a belief in a free-market world will understand that subsidies can't last forever.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Ardern and Robertson are good at listening to the wider business community when it comes to the big picture.
In pre-Budget speeches, they pivoted quickly to talking about job creation and job training.
Whether there is substance behind those words remains to be seen.
