National and Labour's finance spokespeople agree on some things - New Zealand should make the most of its renewable energy, and education is important.

But they disagree on many others, including the best way to help households start to feel better about their financial lives, and the sentiment of the public on the campaign trail.

National's finance spokesperson Nicola Willis faced off against Labour's Barbara Edmonds on RNZ’s Morning Report programme on Wednesday.

While Willis said she was told by people she met during campaigning that it seemed that, finally, progress was being made, and if National wasn't in power after the election they would go to Australia, Edmonds said people were still telling her they were finding it hard to put food on the table or petrol in their cars.

Edmonds said Labour was offering a package of solutions to try to help New Zealanders with the cost of living, including clamping down on price gouging, breaking up the wholesale and retail arms of the supermarkets, offering free prescriptions and three free GP visits, freezing fuel taxes and putting a cap of $20 on public transport costs, per week.

Willis said some households were better off than three years ago, and New Zealand needed to stay on track to grow the economy, create jobs and lift incomes.

She said there was better ahead - and the country had a lot going for it.

"We just need to back it and know that what has been a tough time is going to pay off. We have got to stick with the plan."

Where money was coming from to pay for election promises was up for debate.

Willis argued that Edmonds was having to take money from the National Land Transport Fund to pay for Labour's public transport cap. That money was used to rebuild roads, she said.

Edmonds said Willis was spending too much time attacking Labour's numbers and not enough talking about what National planned to do.

"In that last piece of monologue you just heard from Nicola Willis, not one did she answer your question, which is 'what are you going to do?' It was all about Labour, attacking Labour on numbers, attacking Labour on our economic choices. I'm confident in the numbers but, Nicola Willis, show us your numbers."

Both agreed addressing supermarket prices was a priority.

Edmonds said Willis's meeting with Fonterra chief executive Miles Hurrell about butter prices was "drama for the sake of drama".

"Butter is up by 71 percent. Bread is up by 68 percent. The key thing for Labour is ensuring that there is more competition, which is why our supermarket policy is around splitting the wholesale and the retail."

Willis said the important thing was that there was competition to drive down prices for customers, including between Pak'nSave and New World.

When asked about ways to help children growing up in poverty, Edmonds said she had come through "struggle street" herself.

"I was brought up in a benefit household. When I think about the policies we need to focus on to help lift our children out of poverty, having been through it myself, having been brought up in a benefit household there are three things that stick out for me.

“One is getting people into work. When my father retrained to become a social worker, he had to get off the benefit after mum died. That's what helped lift our household income.

"The second thing is housing, ensuring people who are vulnerable or do not have the money to keep up with market rents, ensuring they're supported through their housing, building more social housing, and not lifting up social housing rents, which the current government has done, which we will reverse. And the third key thing that helps children out of material poverty is education.

"My father made the call to send us to a school because we could stay in one place. We were brought up in one place and we built a community. But ensuring that the education system is able to teach children of all diversities, to help them teach for the future, the skills that they're going to need in the future."

Willis said she agreed education was vital and said the Government had made good progress in getting more kids to school regularly, and improving outcomes with the focus on things like structured literacy.

Both parties committed to renewable energy, including encouraging households to put solar power systems on their roofs.

Willis said it was important to build more solar and wind farms and keep looking for gas in New Zealand, as an alternative to importing fossil fuels from offshore.

Edmonds said renewable energy was the future.

"Building more of it is our future, and ensuring that more households have access to solar is exactly the same policy. We have different ways of doing it, but we believe that that's one way to support our customers."

Neither was keen to see house prices increase quickly. Edmonds said they had to be stable and Willis said she wanted to see moderate price rises over time with incomes rising more quickly.

Edmonds said unemployment should be included in the Reserve Bank's mandate because it was just as important as inflation. Willis said the focus should only be on inflation because the country had experienced what could happen when it got out of control.