Analysis - A meaty quickfire round in Tuesday night's debate revealed a long list of things National and Labour could agree on, but the rest of the head-to-head was far from cordial.
By Jo Moir of RNZ
In the final of three leader debates where the two Chrises faced off on the issues gripping the country the temperature was turned right up.
At one point National's Christopher Luxon described his Labour counterpart Chris Hipkins "without doubt the most abysmal education minister this country has ever had".
Hipkins accused him of being "petty and pathetic" - a fitting description for several exchanges between the pair over the course of the evening.
Luxon went personal more than once, most notable was after Hipkins had taken a whack at the power dynamics within the coalition government.
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Luxon had been responding to why he was ruling out Opportunity, and pointing to the land tax the party is campaigning on, which prompted Hipkins to pipe up with, "so this is the difference between Christopher and I".
"So, he thinks that if you work with another party in government, you have to let them do whatever they want. I don't believe that that's the case. You've let Winston Peters and David Seymour run circles around you for the last three [years].
"If you had just said no to them a little bit more often, you wouldn't be in the pickle that you're in."
Luxon was quick to fire back with a warning.
"I really wouldn't go there. I remember the last three years of your government, you were on your own, and you had a justice minister crash a car."
Political commentators Ben Thomas and Esther Robinson discussed the Stuff leaders debate. (Source: Breakfast)
The reference to former Labour Party MP and minister Kiri Allan, who pleaded guilty to careless driving and refusing to accompany a police officer following the crash, was short-lived as moderator Paddy Gower cut Luxon off and pivoted the debate elsewhere.
Question evasion was also on full display - something Hipkins has roundly criticised Luxon for over the years.
Asked for one thing Hipkins would do about the fiscal time bomb of superannuation, he didn't answer how it would be paid for at all, instead replying, "we're going to keep the age of eligibility for superannuation at 65".
For all of the bickering and sniping (and there was plenty) there was bipartisanship on display too, though neither Chris fully committed to sitting down together post-election and getting any of it tidied away.
They agreed social media users should be able to choose their own feed and not be served up an algorithm - a policy Labour announced on the campaign on Monday.
Both leaders agreed exploiting an overhang in MMP was cheating, life sentences for child rape should be explored further, noise camera trials for boyracers should go ahead, gambling ads during sports games should be looked at, and a referendum on a four-year parliamentary term should proceed.
We also learnt they both haven't tried cocaine, they don't think the Dame Julie Christie documentary into the Tom Phillips investigation should go to air, and neither of them have any interest in doing a debate next election with the other political party leaders.
While neither of the leaders made a grave mistake or flubbed an answer so badly it would change the dial for its party there was no clear winning moment either.
Perhaps most telling was that after five years of being on opposing sides, having both been opposition leader and prime minister at some point, and having already faced off in multiple debates last election, neither has the ability to talk for 45 seconds unscripted about what they see for the country's future.
Both have been given the opportunity at the start of each of the four debates last election and three debates this campaign to sell a succinct message to the public - a vision for New Zealand under their prime ministership.
All seven times they've both loaded up a scripted message to an autocue and awkwardly tried to read it down the barrel of the camera.
After all these years neither has committed to memory what they believe in.
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