NZ First leader Winston Peters got the biggest cheer of the night for making it a bottom line that he would clear a council debt of more than $30 million for local ratepayers.

If there's an emergency "just go out the door" - that was the advice at a Northland candidate meeting and there were several points on Monday night when National's Matt King probably considered doing so.

Northland MP and NZ First leader Winston Peters, Labour candidate Willow-Jean Prime and King faced a crowd of about 130 people in Mangawhai Heads and they weren't afraid to tell it like it is.

Local council issues, roading and poverty were the big themes and King got the biggest bruising over his comments that local ratepayers would have to "move on" and foot the more than $30 million bill from a controversial waste water scheme, which ballooned by millions of dollars under the former Kaipara Council.

JO MOIR/STUFF NZ First leader and Northland MP Winston Peters, Labour candidate Willow-Jean Prime and National candidate Matt King went head-to-head at a candidates meeting in Mangawhai Heads on Monday night.

That comment drew "booos" and shouts of "no way" and was the only point in the evening where the emcee really lost control of the audience.

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Joanna Roberts was given the task of overseeing the meeting, which she refused to call a "debate", and had every candidate on a strict time schedule although seemed to let Peters get a slightly better run than the other two candidates.

Prime contested the Northland by-election that Peters won in 2015 but ended up encouraging people to vote for Peters in order to take the seat off National.

King is a new candidate - Mark Osborne ran in the by-election and lost the seat for National.

Some of his one-liners got a lot of laughs, particularly his comment that he was made for Parliament because he'd been "abused as a rugby referee, abused as a policeman and he'd been married for 27 years".

Others, like, "if you want a job in Northland there's one for you" drew a few sighs and awkward expressions from both Prime and Peters.

Peters got his biggest cheers when he went into bat for the locals fighting to get the wastewater scheme debt scrapped.

"You've been robbed blind on this matter. You've got a massive debt that shouldn't be on your books - it's unfair," he said.

Prime's hard line on abolishing charter schools and reinvesting money in night schools were well received.

She also got plenty of praise for turning up at all given she gave birth to her daughter three weeks ago. Her newborn was in the crowd and made her presence known a couple times over the course of the evening.

Some of the best one-liners however went to Roberts who promised everyone the water was free and they could drink as much as they liked and apologised to anyone annoyed they were missing the latest episode of Game of Thrones.

Peters pulled out another bottom line, which was more of a diversion from answering whether he would go with National or Labour if in the Kingmaker position.

He promised to get rid of the council debt inflicted on Kaipara Council ratepayers if he was part of a Government after the election.

The crowd seemed to be a fairly even mix of Labour, National and NZ First voters.

Some spoken to, who were National Party supporters, said they didn't think King was very "charismatic" but National had a leader with a "business and economic" background.

While they liked Labour leader Jacinda Ardern, they doubted her business abilities and they hadn't been persuaded to vote for Peters in the time he'd been Northland MP.

King used his final minute to point out that Prime and Peters would end up in Parliament regardless after the election because of their position on the list and he was happy to use that to ask for the "sympathy vote".

"I'm the only guy who has got my neck on the block."

Peters warned the crowd that they wanted experience in Parliament - not someone who "couldn't find the Parliamentary toilets".

Prime called for change and signed off with the party's signature, "let's do this".

While some left frustrated their questions hadn't been answered properly there were several others who acknowledged they were lucky they had three candidates who were all "competent" even if they didn't agree with their politics.