Politics / Election 2023

Deputies Debate: Labour's Carmel Sepuloni and National's Nicola Willis

18:00 pm on 5 October 2023

Labour's Carmel Sepuloni and National's Nicola Willis have gone head to head in the Checkpoint Deputies Debate.

The two deputy leaders clashed over National's tax plans after it was revealed just 3000 families will get the full $250 a fortnight tax cut they have been campaigning on.

They also argued over who was responsible for the country's housing crisis.

She earlier rejected claims New Zealanders had been misled.

While Willis was explaining the policy, Sepuloni jumped in, saying: "You haven't actually been clear, Nicola. I think you've been less clear with New Zealanders, I think I've heard about nine times where you do not make it clear that it would only be 3000 people that were eligible for $250 a fortnight.

"I feel like it was very misleading actually Nicola, and you need to face up to that."

Later in the debate, Willis said Labour had promised to solve the housing crisis with 100,000 Kiwibuild homes.

"I think how many have been delivered, Carmel? Is it 2000? I mean it certainly isn't 100,000."

Willis continued by saying the waiting list for public housing was now four times what it was when Labour took office.

Sepuloni said National sold public houses instead of building public houses.

"We inherited that housing crisis from you. It was under National. Nicola, as a reminder, it was under National that emergency housing policy had to be implemented because sadly, there was so many New Zealanders sleeping in cars, so we have been building houses, Nicola."

Look back over the debate blog to see how it played out: