Increasing number of New Zealanders choosing to relocate to Australia

An alarming poll revealed that over 30% of New Zealanders have thought about relocating to Australia within the last year due to limited economic opportunities pushing many to seek better prospects abroad.

During the year ending in September, a record-breaking 80,000 New Zealanders departed for foreign shores, with around half of them believed to have set their sights on Australia, commonly referred to as the “lucky country.”

New Zealand is in the grip of a ‘brain drain’ as young Kiwis go in search of better jobs, prices and pay across the ditch or further afield. 

A recent survey conducted by The Post and Freshwater Strategy discovered that 37% of New Zealand voters had seriously contemplated moving to Australia in the past 12 months, signaling a potentially significant exodus across the Tasman Sea.

That’s compared with a mere 8 per cent of Australian voters who have considered moving to New Zealand. 

Of the Kiwis considering the move, the most-represented age group was New Zealanders aged 18-35 (55 per cent). 

As for their political leanings, it was Te Pati Maori voters (55 per cent) who were most eager to leave, followed by supporters of the libertarian ACT Party and the Greens (both 41 per cent). 

The poll also showed a slumping economy was at the forefront of voters’ minds, with 60 per cent selecting cost of living pressures as their most important concern.  

Economic commentator Brad Olsen said the data showed monetary pressures in New Zealand were ‘starting to really hit home’.

‘A lot more people are obviously casting about, thinking about the options for the future,’ Mr Olsen told the Press. 

‘At the moment, with the New Zealand unemployment rate higher than the Australian, there’s a lot of people looking at those numbers and saying: there’s better job opportunities on a relative basis in Australia. I might go there and shoot my shot.

‘It’s not just single individuals going off for a couple of years. We are seeing more families moving en masse to Australia, and that does cause concern about where our future labour market is going to be as New Zealand’s population ages.’ 

The latest available figure for unemployment in New Zealand is 4.8 per cent, while Australia’s is 4.1 per cent. 

Although record numbers of Kiwis are leaving their home country, it still had a net migration gain of almost 45,000 in the September 2024 year, according to Stats NZ. 

But that figure had fallen from a net migration peak of 136,300 in the October 2023 year. 

By contrast, Australia’s net migration in the year to March 2024 was 509,800 people.  

New Zealanders are able to live and work in Australia, and vice versa, through specially-created visas. 

Last year the Federal Government announced Kiwis who had been living in Australia for at least four years on a special category visa could apply for citizenship.

Citizenship brings a raft of benefits, including a social security safety net, access to student loans and to work a range of public service and defence roles set aside only for Australians. 

Kiwis are the fourth-largest migrant community in Australia, behind China, India and the UK, according to Department of Home Affairs data.

About 586,020 Kiwis were living in Australia in June 2022 – 2.9 per cent more than the number a decade earlier.

Why a hardworking Kiwi couple decided to ditch New Zealand to live in Australia 

New Zealand couple Tim and Eva Mitchell are in midst of a year-long trip around the world, but the adventurous Kiwi couple say the only thing that made it possible was leaving their homeland to live in Australia.

In 2019, the pair followed the path of thousands of Kiwis across the Tasman in search of higher wages and more career opportunities.

After only 16 months of living in Melbourne, where Eva, 28, worked as an IVF pharmacist and Tim, 33, worked for the same engineering company that employed him in New Zealand, the pair had saved enough to fund a year travelling overseas.

‘If we stayed in New Zealand, we probably wouldn’t be able to travel – we couldn’t have saved enough,’ Eva told Daily Mail Australia from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

‘Everyone is struggling all over the world, but in New Zealand, I think they are lagging behind.’ 

Better money for Kiwis who move to Australia 

She said by moving to Australia, the pair pulled in 30 per cent higher wages than at home, plus they found there were many other financial advantages, such as tax deductions for job expenses that just didn’t exist in New Zealand.

In their Make Cents of Travel blog Eva writes that the couple ‘knew that moving to Australia would mean we would be able to save more money AND save money faster than if we stayed in NZ, solely by securing higher paying jobs’.

‘What we didn’t realise was the many other ways that living in Australia would present to facilitate our savings goals, starting with having to pay less income tax,’ she writes.

‘An average Australian full-time salary of $95k requires you to pay roughly $21,300 income tax per year.

‘In New Zealand, on the same salary (if you can find a job that pays the equivalent), you would be required to pay around $23,200 in income tax per year.’

However, that wasn’t even the best bit.

‘In Australia, you are entitled to claim tax back on a variety of work expenses,’ she said.

‘These include professional fees, working from home costs, work tools, conference costs, work clothing and so much more.

‘At the end of the day, we found that Australia not only pays better; it lets you keep more of what you earn.’

Eva recalled when the pair moved to Australia ‘everyone was saying make sure you claim your tax back’.

‘As far as we were aware we were never able to claim back the same expenses in New Zealand, not in normal jobs, perhaps if you had a business,’ she said. 

‘The grass certainly is greener.’

More career opportunities  

Both Eva and Tim enjoyed career opportunities in Australia they would not have in New Zealand.

Eva went from being a pharmacist at a public hospital in Christchurch to working for a private IVF clinic and a private-sector pharmacy job that she said did not exist in New Zealand.

‘With my new job came a pay rise, bonuses and a small team where I felt valued,’ she wrote in the blog.

Even if she had gone back into public sector pharmacy, the pay rise in Australia would have been substantial.

Despite working for the same company, Tim also got ‘a significant pay increase to transfer to Australia’, which would have taken ‘years’ to obtain in New Zealand.

‘Shortly after moving to Australia, Tim was able to secure a higher authority role, which is testament to the career progression opportunities Australian companies can provide for NZ professionals looking to relocate to Australia,’ Eva wrote.

‘On top of a pay rise, Tim’s transfer agreement provided us both with flights to Melbourne, and a month of free accommodation in an apartment in the Melbourne CBD until we could secure our own rental property. Not a bad deal if I say so myself!’

Better work life balance  

As if being paid more wasn’t enough, Tim and Eva discovered Australians work shorter hours than Kiwis and that supermarkets are cheaper.

‘The standard New Zealand working week is 40 hours (as opposed to 38 in Australia), so over the space of a whole year, it is about 100 hours difference,’ Eva commented.

‘It doesn’t seem like much, two hours a week, but it is, and we found it convenient because it gives you time to pop into the banks when they are open.’

She also said that in Victoria offers ‘seasonal cashbacks on dining out, activities and electricity bills to all residents’.

‘Thanks to these cashback schemes, we were reimbursed hundreds of dollars during our time spent living in Melbourne,’ she writes.

Eva and Tim also liked living in Melbourne, which has a population around four times the number of New Zealand’s biggest city, Auckland.

‘If we wanted to anything close to Melbourne’s size the only option is Auckland but obviously it’s pretty expensive to be there,’ Eva said.

‘It is probably on a par with Melbourne, but in Melbourne you get better wages.

‘You just don’t get the same opportunities. There is always something to do in Melbourne – there are always events on.’

After a 10-month sojourn in Europe, the couple plan to have two more months in south-east Asia before heading home, which is now no longer in New Zealand.

‘I can’t see us going back to New Zealand,’ Eva said.

‘Pay is a big issue. If we could get the same pay we might go back but we are still missing out on the city lifestyle.’

Eva said she and Tim did have some regrets.

‘We do feel guilty for leaving, we do miss our celebrations back home so we feel guilty for missing out on that,’ she said. 

Eva said they would not have ‘deserted’ their country if they ‘could have looked out for us’.

‘Australia has given us opportunities we just wouldn’t have in New Zealand,’ she said.

‘People can call us unpatriotic but we’ve just got to do what’s best for us.’