Bill English and 1 NEWS Political Editor Corin Dann have locked horns in a heated Q + A discussion, days out from next weekend's general election.

In a fiery exchange, Dann accused the National Party leader of "scaring voters" with campaign ads attacking Labour over tax, labelling National's campaigning as "negative" and asking Mr English if he and National were instead scared to "run on your record".





"It's just a part of a concerted scare campaign isn't it? You haven't been able to run on your record, you have run on a negative campaign," Dann asked Mr English.

"You're just out there to scare voters. Are you not proud of your record?"





Mr English fired back: "I absolutely disagree.

"We are very proud of our record; we are running on our record. We're running on a plan for the next three years, the next five years to take advantage of the strong economy.

"The Labour Party and the other parties have an obligation to answer the questions that New Zealanders are asking, not just us."

Dann responded: "Correct me if I'm wrong, but the TV ads you guys have been putting out over the last few days and changing have been, what, running on your record? Doesn't look like that to me. It's negative tax ads."

But Mr English said the ads were not about the National Party trying to bring down their opposition but having Labour answer the questions the public have on their policies.

"The public wants to know the answers to those questions about how many taxes and when. Labour keeps changing their mind and it's absolutely legitimate.

"This is real," Mr English continued.

"This is about cash in people's pockets, investment decisions, the decisions to employ another person, what people can take home at the end of the week.

"These are real things not just hypothetical argument."

Dann responded: "Are you comfortable personally as a leader of integrity to be running lines like $11.7 billion holes which no one economist in this country will back?

"Do you feel personally comfortable with that sort of attack politics?"

English: "Yes, I do because that is the estimate of this weird budget that Labour has put up."

Dann then asked Mr English why his party hadn’t mentioned throughout their campaign their vision for the future.

"The campaign has got pretty focused on the messy policy from Labour on tax," said Mr English.

"Oh, come on who's exploited that?" Dann interjected.

"Well the public want to know. It's not a matter of politics this is about people's real livelihoods," said Mr English.

Dann: "But surely you must've thought about a positive campaign and about trying to highlight the things you want to do?"

English: "We have. We've had an announcement every day for six weeks. Well organised laying out the plan for infrastructure, investment for support for families, for cheaper GP visits for both parents to receive paid parental leave."

Dann: "Why are all these suddenly coming in the campaign and haven't been done a lot earlier?"

English: "Because people need to see the plan, that's one. And secondly, actually we've always been a busy government. In any six week period we're announcing a whole lot of things. But certainly it's sped up for the campaign because we’ve got a positive plan and actually we know what needs to be done for New Zealand."