A polarising view on immigration from the two major parties.

Prime Minister Bill English says his Government's predicting 212,000 migrants will be needed over the next four years to fill jobs.

"We're going to need a lot of skilled migrants just to do the infrastructure and the construction for housing, let alone other growing industries like IT."

But Labour's immigration spokesperson Iain Lees-Galloway said that's absurd, as our infrastructure will never be able to support that sort of population growth.

"We simply can't handle that kind of population growth and if Bill English thinks we can, he has lost the plot.

"People are concerned about house prices. People are concerned about congestion. People are concerned about the strain that population growth is putting on infrastructure, particularly in Auckland."

Though Mr English said he's confident New Zealand can handle that scale of growth.

He believes migration will be a key issue this election campaign.

"We unashamedly believe in New Zealand's capacity to be a growing unashamedly, and our political opponents think that New Zealand's not up to it."

It's set to be a major issue heading into the election campaign, and both Labour and National agree on that.