Speaking to media afterwards, they both said they enjoyed the sparring.
Asked what he did best in the debate, Hipkins said he answered the questions, while Luxon did not.
Asked whether it would change the dial with respect to recent polling, Luxon said: “the debate is only one aspect of a campaign”.
“I hope it was a good platform to hear us both speak,” Luxon said.
In the debate, Luxon sidestepped questions about what he would do if the tax revenue he expects to pay for tax relief doesn’t come through.
National’s tax package has been questioned by some economists but also independently verified by strategic advisers Castalia, and took centre stage again at the start of the debate.
Luxon said he was confident in the numbers, and those included selling 1600-1700 homes over $2 million to foreigners a year, taxed at 15 per cent, which would bring in enough revenue alongside other measures to fund tax relief for low to middle-income New Zealanders.
Hipkins repeated a line of attack he’s been trying for over two weeks - that the numbers don’t stack up.
“They can’t sell $5 billion in Kiwi homes every year,” he said, adding New Zealanders would also have to gamble online more than now and also suffer through billions of dollars in public service cuts.
“I don’t trust him to be up-front and honest with New Zealanders ... if he was, he’d be releasing his secret costings.”
Hipkins claimed National’s tax cuts would fuel inflation, which Luxon said was rubbish because it had been costed as fiscally neutral.
Hipkins said National’s plan would cut a lot of policies to reduce the cost of living - like no $5 prescription fee - but Luxon said National’s tax relief would give $250 a fortnight to a family of four.
“It’s much better than a couple of cents off your beans and carrots,” Luxon said, in a reference to Labour’s GST-free fruit and vegetables policy where savings may not be passed on to consumers.
A median worker would be $25 a week better off, which would be useful as rents and food prices and fuel costs have increased, Luxon said.
“Help is on the way,” Luxon said, a line often used by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.
On a coalition
“Winston Peters and David Seymour would be running circles around you,” Hipkins said to Luxon, who was asked whether he was prepared to manage the two party leaders in a potential coalition.
Luxon responded that Labour had an absolute majority and got nothing done.
“Stable government does not come from working with Winston Peters,” Hipkins said.
Hipkins turned around a question on Labour’s poor polling by saying people couldn’t trust National.
Jessica Mutch McKay is moderating the debate between Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon. Photo / TVNZ
On crime
Asked whether he knew what it was like to feel unsafe, Hipkins said he didn’t walk around feeling unsafe at the moment as Prime Minister.
He noted the 50,000 charges against gang members as part of Operation Cobalt, and the 75 per cent reduction in reoffending in the Circuit Breaker programme to break the cycle of crime.
“That what we need to turn their lives around.”
Asked if he personally knew how it felt to feel unsafe, Luxon said he had walked through downtown Auckland and he didn’t feel safe.
Luxon said Labour had not been focused on keeping people feel safe. They had only had one target - to reduce the prison population by 30 per cent, but there had not been a 30 per cent decrease in crime.
Hipkins said Luxon’s response on crime, claiming Labour was soft on crime, contained no solutions. Luxon replied by saying he would “back police and tackle gangs”.
Luxon listed the party’s crime policies around gangs, taking a jab at Hipkins saying “mate, you’re funding the gangs”, referencing a drug rehab programme linked to the Mongrel Mob.
On gangs and tangi processions that stopped traffic, Hipkins agreed it wasn’t good enough and that was why Labour had proposed to change the law by giving police more powers to stop gang tangi processions.
“But Chris you’ve had six years,” Luxon shot back.
“I like our ideas,” said Luxon, which was to make the gang life unattractive. Part of that was to ban gang patches and give police powers to break up any gatherings, he said.
On ram raids, Hipkins said it was “absolutely shocking” that kids younger than 10 were committing ram raids.
“This is a cycle of crime, we’ve got to break that cycle”, Hipkins said while emphasising the importance of wrapping support around children who were often exposed to family violence.
“Christopher’s solution is boot camps,” Hipkins said of Luxon.
On their boot camps plan, Luxon said he thought they could improve the previous models used.
“I think we can make them work incredibly well. I am not prepared to write them off.”
“Bootcamps have a near 80 percent failure rate,” Hipkins said, while referencing how Labour investments into circuit breaker programmes had led to 80 percent of kids not reoffending.
Luxon said Labour was “soft on crime”, to which Hipkins replied “a slogan is not a solution”.
Hipkins said the law had been changed so police could “go after the gangs”.
On housing
Asked how they would bring housing prices down, Hipkins said more houses needed to be built in order to build our way out of the housing crisis.
Hipkins accepted KiwiBuild was an “unrealistic promise” and said the house building momentum needed to be continued. He took a shot at National, saying its proposal to lift the foreign buyers ban would increase house prices across the country.
Luxon said National would greatly expand the areas zoned to build houses and increase incentives.
“We need to be a nation of homeowners, not a nation of renters,” Hipkins said, while taking a shot at Luxon for offering incentives to landlords and how the last National government sold off state houses.
Luxon said they agreed on the need to build more state houses but would work more with community housing providers.
Luxon said he could guarantee their policies would not see a $180 increase in rents as seen under Labour.
Hipkins asked whether National would guarantee the incentives to landlords would be passed to tenants. Luxon didn’t answer directly, to which Hipkins replied, “I think that’s a no”.
Hipkins didn’t believe making life easier for landlords was the right way to go, as proposed under National’s tax plan, to ensure more people became homeowners. He said there were more “mega landlords” these days and that that wasn’t right.
On health
Hipkins guaranteed no cuts to health and education and claimed that was something National hadn’t delivered on in the past.
Luxon said there would be no cuts to health spending and they would increase it every year. He said it was “outrageous” for Hipkins to claim the system was not broken.
Hipkins said a priority was paying nurses more so that they would stay in New Zealand.
“Christopher Luxon calls this wasteful spending.”
Luxon then pivoted to how he wanted to cut backroom staff and unnecessary spending on those roles.
“The wasteful spending is 200 comms staff in Health NZ rather than nurses,” said Luxon.
Luxon spoke about nurses and health professionals heading over to Australia. He mentioned National’s policies to train more people here, and said paying them more would be part of that.
“Undoubtedly there’s always room to pay people more,” Hipkins said to a question on whether GPs should be paid more.
Luxon added it would have been great if Labour had started training more doctors six years ago.
Hipkins said he last went to a GP relatively recently and got an appointment relatively speedily. He denied it was because he was Prime Minister - the appointment had actually been for his child.
Luxon said it took at least a week to get a physical GP appointment. He tended to do Zoom consultations.
On mental health, Luxon said there needed to be a dedicated minister and specific targets. He also wanted to get more funding to community organisations.
Hipkins was asked why $1.9b invested in mental health hadn’t made much of a difference. He said it took time to build systems and he accepted how it may have taken a while but he was confident the number of appointments was increasing.
Luxon said the prioritisation in public services should be on the basis of need, and ethnicity should not factor into those decisions.
Luxon hit back at Hipkins’ claim his party was race-baiting. He said coming through the needs lens was a better way.
Hipkins hit back and said that was happening but Māori and Pasifika were still waiting longer to be seen.
The pair went back and forth on the topic, Hipkins challenging Luxon on why Māori should wait longer for the same healthcare if they had the same need.
“I am not afraid of anything, Chris,” Luxon said after Hipkins said he should “not be afraid” of Māori having control over their health services.
Doctors picket the Auckland City Hospital during the nationwide Senior Doctors strike, on September 5. Photo / Jason Oxenham
On co-governance
Luxon said he felt the definition of co-governance had been expanded since the last National government.
He thought the current government hadn’t properly explained what the concept meant.
On “by Māori, for Māori” approaches, Luxon said it was a “great solution”.”We invented it in the National Party and we will continue to do it.”
Hipkins said co-governance simply meant shared decision-making over natural resources and believed it had been successful. He believed Māori and non-Māori working together benefited New Zealand.
Luxon said he supported it in the space of local natural resources.
“Why do you think you know better about Māori health than Māori do?” Hipkins hit back after Luxon objected to the Maori Health Authority.
“The Māori Health Authority isn’t having two systems,” Hipkins said.
Luxon said he supported Māori health providers.
Hipkins said the health system was dealing with systemic issues and it would take time to build capacity within the system to fix them.
Luxon said every single health indicator had worsened under Labour but Hipkins countered that by saying smoking rates had decreased.
On dental
Three voters were given the chance to put a question to the leaders.
Dr Hugh Trengrove said the oral health situation was appalling in New Zealand, and that sugar was a key risk factor. His question was what would the leaders do about the sugar epidemic?
Asked about a ban on fizzy drinks, Luxon said they could look into it. He wasn’t sure about banning them in schools.
Hipkins said he thought fizzy drinks should be banned in schools and if elected, Labour would do that. Labour had also recently announced free dental for under 30s.
The health system was in crisis, Luxon said, adding everyone would love to expand free dental care but there were other more important priorities. He was sceptical about Labour’s ability to deliver on free dental for under 30s.
Hipkins said Labour’s dental policy was a “fraction of the cost” of National’s tax cuts. Luxon responded by saying there were other priorities to which Hipkins said, “you’ve indicated that tax cuts for you and me is more important”.
On climate change
Luxon said National agreed there was a climate emergency and his party was committed to all of New Zealand’s climate targets.
Hipkins said we absolutely had a climate emergency and the focus should be on reducing emission. He noted National had signed up to emission targets but had scrapped methods to enable that.
Luxon said National simply had a different way to do it. National would double the amount of renewable energy, he said.
Hipkins said we needed to act with “ever more urgency” on climate change, while referencing how National wouldn’t set agricultural emission pricing until the next decade.
”I don’t think we can afford to take that long”.
Luxon said he thought Labour’s policies would knock off 20-25 per cent of the sector, to which Hipkins responded “that’s simply not true”.
Hipkins said to Luxon that cutting the Clean Car Discount and winding back projects that reduced emissions wouldn’t get New Zealand to its targets.
“We have a proven track record of reducing our emissions ... it’s not just a bunch of slogans,” Hipkins said.
When asked what he was doing for the environment, Luxon said as a family they had embraced recycling “some time ago”.
Hipkins said he had an EV and he recycled, when asked how he had changed his life to be more climate-friendly.
Luxon wouldn’t call climate change our nuclear-free moment but said it was a serious crisis.
Hipkins said climate change was New Zealand’s nuclear-free moment, something Luxon said he didn’t agree with because he didn’t like slogans.
Earlier, Hipkins spoke on his plan to grow the economy saying boosting exports and being the “cleanest greenest economy” was essential.
Hipkins said the Government had led the country to one of the lowest unemployment rates ever.
They sparred on fuel prices, with Luxon saying he wouldn’t raise petrol taxes for a first term, while Hipkins said an extra 4c a year was needed to invest in roads. He further claimed that Luxon’s climate policies could see an additional 40 cents a litre at a petrol pump, which National has said is rubbish.
Hipkins claimed Luxon thinks international investors wouldn’t give money for new roads without wanting something in return.
On poverty
Another voter, Sky Rens, a young waitress who lived on Auckland’s North Shore, asked whether rich people had any responsibility for poverty. Hipkins said “absolutely” and that they needed to pay their fair share.
Hipkins said he was clear a capital gains tax or wealth tax wouldn’t be implemented under his watch, but said he would be happy to pay one if a CGT did come in in the future.
Luxon said a more meaningful way to deliver to people like Sky was to deliver tax relief, reprising NZ First leader Winston Peters’ old line: “help is on its way”.
On making life better for children
A third voter, Alva Storey, who had children and had been living in the country for a couple of years, asked how the leaders would make New Zealand a better country in 10 years time.
Hipkins cited Labour’s dental policy, saying it was affordable and would mean there would be fewer dental issues later in life.
Luxon said a world-class education system was the one thing National would focus on.
