National and Labour's deputy leaders have clashed over the government's emergency housing targets.TVNZ on Sunday revealed managers at the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) are being assessed on the government's target of reducing the number of people in emergency housing.Linked to the government's target of a 75 percent reduction of people in emergency housing, critics said the approach was pushing people into homelessness which they said was anecdotally at the highest levels New Zealand had seen.Ministers denied direct responsibility, saying the implementation of the target by officials was an operational matter handled by the ministry's chief executive.Appearing on Morning Report's weekly political panel alongside Labour's Carmel Sepuloni, National Party deputy and Finance Minister Nicola Willis defended the approach, saying the target got results."Do you know what those officials have achieved ... it's extraordinary. They have moved 2367 children who were living in dank substandard motel rooms into permanent social homes, and that's because our government set a target."We said it's not good enough on our watch for kids to be raised in motel rooms as the previous government allowed to occur, and we've put them on a priority list to get them into social homes, and we've dropped the numbers of people living in motels significantly."Willis said MSD officials had deserved credit for doing that by working with individual families to get them into homes, helped broker tenancies in private rentals, and helped prioritise them into Kainga Ora homes."It got results. Fewer people living in dank motel rooms. More social homes. More people getting the support they want."She did not directly answer whether the targets and performance management approach would change."Actually we will leave the operational responsibility with the Ministry for Social Development to decide how they incentivise staff to deliver on that target," she said."And if Carmel wants to tell you this morning that it was acceptable that more than 3000 New Zealand families were living in revolting motel rooms that were costing sometimes hundreds and hundreds of dollars a night and that's a good solution to social housing then I'd say to you that she is wrong."Sepuloni challenges claimsSepuloni said that was ignoring the problem, claiming the target was "performative" and only about preventing people accessing supports."When Nicola talks about how they have reduced the numbers of people into emergency housing and there are more people getting housed, I question and challenge that - as does the Auckland City Mission, as does every other housing and social service provider working in our main centres," she said."This government can continue to try and ignore what the people on the frontline are saying, but we stand by those people ... what they are seeing is not being made up, they are not imagining it."Labour's deputy leader Carmel SepuloniRNZ / Angus DreaverShe said the approach of housing people in motels started under a previous National government in 2015."It was less than ideal," she began, as Willis started laughing, "but certainly better than having people on the streets."Sepuloni would not commit Labour to going back to housing families in motels."What we would go back to is ramping up our support for public housing, the public housing build, and making sure that we've got the houses ... in the meantime, you don't just leave people on the streets."She said the ministry and ministers needed to "go back and check the legislation, I'm pretty sure there's something in there about the need to make sure that people are accessing what they're entitled to".