Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins says National's international education announcement is a "nothing policy".

National leader Christopher Luxon says the party is promising to expand work rights for international students, and increase student recruitment from a wider number of countries.

But Hipkins says: "It's another nothing announcement from National. We already have a relatively open border when it comes to international students, there's no cap on how many international students can come in to the country, and international student visas, I think the average visa processing time is 19 days, which is well below the target of 30 days for international student visas to be processed."

"We're seeing international education rebounding after the pandemic. We attract a lot of international students from China, that's been slower to warm up again after the pandemic, not just for New Zealand but for all of the countries where they travel for international education. It's one of the reasons why last year as minister of education, as soon as the border reopened, I visited six different countries in order to promote New Zealand's international education sector to diversify the markets in which we are getting international students from."

Earlier on Thursday, Labour's Ginny Andersen, National's Mark Mitchell, Greens' Ricardo Menéndez March, Te Pāti Māori's John Tamihere and New Zealand First's Winston Peters took part in a law and order debate on RNZ's Morning Report.

Each candidate was given one minute to open the debate and say how their party would reduce crime in the country.

They then debated gangs, police, prisoner numbers and more.

Follow all the latest updates on RNZ's liveblog:

- RNZ.