Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and National Party leader Judith Collins clashed over housing in the Newshub Leaders Debate.
Debate host Newshub national correspondent Patrick Gower asked both if they want house prices to drop.
"I don't want them to keep escalating, it's not sustainable," Ardern said.
"That's not the question," Gower interrupted.
"I don't want them to grow Paddy, simple," Ardern answered. "I want them to stabilise so that people can get to the market."
Collins somewhat agreed.
"In some cases they're going to have to go down, but you don't want to have people who have borrowed up to the hilt to buy a house suddenly having negative equity - and that I think is the problem Ms Ardern has," Collins said.
The National Leader touted her plans to reform the Resource Management Act (RMA) and used Christchurch as an example.
Ardern replied: "If the RMA was the solution, why did Judith Collins not do it in the nine years that she was in office?"
"We tried to but you wouldn't give us the votes to help us get it," Collins replied.
"Deep breath, Judith," Ardern retorted.
Watch the video.
