19-year high for kiwis moving to Oz

[MotherBear]

Kiwis moving to Australia at 19-year high
1:00PM Wednesday December 19, 2007
By Sineva Toevai

The lure of Australia is proving too hard to resist for an increasing number of kiwis.

The number of New Zealanders shifting to Australia in the year to November jumped to the highest in 19 years as higher wages lured people across the Tasman.

The outflow of kiwis to Australia rose 33 per cent in the 12 months ending November to 27,200, the highest level for a November year since 1988, when it recorded 32,700, a Statistics New Zealand report showed today.

Today's figures come less than a week after the government confirmed in a separate report that the wage gap between New Zealand and Australia had widened and that the equivalent of nearly 10 per cent of New Zealand's population were now living in Australia.

"The pull factor in Australia remains very strong given the income difference and [expectations] Australia will continue to grow faster than New Zealand in the next 12 to 18 months," ANZ economist Khoon Goh told nzherald.co.nz

More here .

[dharmin]

Hello....

This is my first post on the forum.

Not sure if I should imigrate to NZ or AUS from UK, have not been to either country.

Reading the article if NZ local's are moving to AUS for better life/money then am sure there must be better life/money in AUS then NZ.

Does anyone know the cost of living in Perth (AUS) and Wellington (NZ)

Regards
Dharmin

[MotherBear]

Welome to the forum Dharmin.

I'm not sure a NZ immigration forum is quite the place to ask about the cost of living in Oz but here you go .

This is the closest I can get for Wellington (or rather Auckland which could be quite similar) . Most of the stuff for NZ is well out of date so there wasn't much point posting it. There's a similar page on here for Perth but it's a year out of date so I put a different one on for there.

If your really want to go into the subject you can look on here but you have to pay to view.

[dharmin]

Hello MB

Thanks .... Happy New Year

Regards
Dharmin

[Duke]

Are the Kiwi's trying to better themselves by venturing out of isolation? Do the Kiwi's want to be in the mix of confusion and mass quantity? Maybe the Kiwis feel left out of society and choose to leave NZ to find truth, or is it that expensive and unhealthy to live in New Zealand to create a comfort bubble for a balanced life? They always report the stats, but never really giving the real answer on why they are leaving....Is NZ that poor of a country that thier own people need to leave? And does NZ attract imigrates from poorer countries to work for thier lower wages? what is it? what does NZ want to be in the world?

[KiwiHopeful]

Duke,

Those are all excellent questions. I've yet to hear anyone answer them satisfactorily. Despite the fact that surveys of Kiwis in Oz say that they went across the ditch for 'lifestyle' reasons, all anyone wants to acknowledge are the economic reasons. Ask and people will tell you, 'They go for more money.' The politicians, too, are singing this tune. However, it isn't true ... at least not from what the surveys of the leavers themselves say.

[Burgundy21]

There is no certain answer to questions like these, but they have certainly preyed on my mind for the past 10 weeks. People don't just leave for more money, this forum is proof of that, most people coming into NZ are taking a cut in salary and status, so economic reasons are political smokescreens. I feel that an awful lot of educated kiwis are looking for a better life in a less isolated place. When you have only a handful of major places in your country then any large capital city looks appealing. Many kiwis travel away to visit the places their families came from, it's all part of the big OE. When they get there they often stay earning much more money than here and seeing the world. Let's face it NZ is not near anywhere and lacks history and culture because it's so new. ( actually it does have a true culture and that is Maori but not many people I've met here seem interested in that.) As to who the kiwis are....they don't know themselves. Take a look at the flags flying in their gardens, Welsh, Scottish, Union Jacks flutter alongside the NZ one, Caledonian societies and bowls clubs, cricket, croquet, polo are played, fish and chips, pies and balti feature on menus and when the palate is jaded there's Chinese or Thai. I am all for cultural diaspora but I think you need a sense of national identity to drive a country forwards in a positive fashion.

I had a moment of clarity in Te Papa Museum whilst looking at the impact of the settlers bringing in their own animals and plants when they first arrived. I think you can draw a parallel between that and what is happening with immigration now: Settlers brought in rabbits but they bred too fast and ate too much grass stealing food from the sheep. Next they brought in something to eat the rabbits , maybe it was possum or mink, anyway you can make coats out of it if you so wish. Then the predators bred too fast and ate the native wildlife almost in the case of the kiwi causing its extinction .Now we need to eliminate the newcomers using everything from cute come-hither cages to tasty cyanide tablets.

So, are we, the newly arrived settlers driving out the kiwis by taking their jobs or are they the smart ones leaving us to fill in the skills gaps?