The 2008 global financial crisis present a serious challenge to the fiscal sustainability of countries across the world. New Zealand met the challenge with a fiscal position better than most other advanced countries，and could expect to return to fiscal surplus in the 2014-2015 fiscal year. This is made possible by，among others，the fiscal and budgetary reforms aiming at fiscal sustainability and stability New Zealand has pursued consistently since the mid-1980s. This paper reviews the causes，contents，implementation，and effects of these reforms，with a focus on the principles of fiscal responsibility and corresponding reforms concerning governmental accounting and reporting rules stipulated in Public Finance Act（1989）and Fiscal Responsibility Act（1994）as well as the three approaches of expenditure control the government has adopted in turn since the early 1990s. New Zealand provides valuable lessens for the current China whose fiscal sustainability has become problematic since 2008.