There’s always an Opposition politician ready to engage in points-scoring over the perennial issue of Kiwis packing their bags and making a go of life across the Tasman.
Witness this week the irrepressible David Seymour carrying on like a squawking galah, to use the Australian idiom, as he claimedthat Prime Minister Chris Hipkins had been “played like a didgeridoo” by the Australians over the newly minted citizenship deal.
To employ another Aussie-flavoured metaphor, you’d have to be as mad as a cut snake to swallow that.
Canberra’s decision to provide a pathway to citizenship for Kiwis who have lived in Australia for at least four years should be warmly welcomed. Announcing the deal on the eve of Anzac Day, when our two countries’ war sacrifices are remembered and mateship is toasted, made it especially pertinent.
In the 20 years since John Howard ditched the welfare entitlements of Australia-based New Zealanders, in return for maintaining their long-established right to live and work there, the issue has caused resentment for Kiwis on both sides of the Tasman. It was innately unfair, and that’s now been rectified.
As the sociologist Paul Spoonley explains, the new citizenship deal is about equity for those Kiwis who have worked long and hard in Australia, paying their taxes and contributing to society.
Kiwis across the ditch will essentially be getting the same rights, and access to critical services, as the 70,000 Australians living in this country. That doesn’t feel like anyone getting “played.”
Also, it’s not as though Kiwis who relocate across the Tasman are permanently lost to New Zealand, as they’ll retain their New Zealand citizenship and, who knows, some might even return to our shores in due course, as often happens.
Kiwis will flock to Australia no matter what, says Mike Munro. Photo / Getty Images
Seymour argues that the lure of Australian citizenship, and the entitlements that come with it, will just coax more of our talent on to transtasman flights, at a time when Australia is desperate for skilled workers.
The reality is that New Zealanders flocking to Australia is a story that plays on an infinite loop. It has been going on for yonks, and Australia, with its offerings of fatter pay packets, vibrant cities and a beating sun, has always been the favoured destination, and probably always will be.
This exodus is offset, of course, by the numbers eager to come to New Zealand from elsewhere, as illustrated by February’s record number of arrivals on work visas. A net migration gain of 11,700 that month was the second-highest for any month, ever.
It is little wonder that New Zealand now finds itself being adjudged the OECD’s best at attracting skilled workers.
But let’s return to the westward surge across the Tasman.
The outflow of Kiwis over time has ebbed and flowed, depending generally on the relative economic and labour market conditions between New Zealand and our neighbour.
Cast your mind back to the 1970s, when the country was in the economic doldrums. In 1979, some 65,000 New Zealanders left, producing a record net migration loss of 40,000. It gave rise to then-PM Rob Muldoon’s imperishable quip that when Kiwis emigrated to Australia, it raised the IQ of both countries.
The transtasman migration trend line has generally always shown – apart from the time of the Covid-enforced border shutdown - a net loss to New Zealand, an historical pattern that has provided good fodder for Opposition politicians here.
Former Prime Minister John Key (right) and former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott at Eden Park in 2015. Photo / Michael Craig
A 2008 election ad featured John Key, then on the cusp of becoming PM, standing in an empty Sky Stadium in Wellington and lamenting the fact that the 35,000 seats around him represented the number of people who had left for Australia that year.
Then by 2012, four years into Key’s prime ministership, New Zealand had its worst year on record for migration across the Tasman: nearly 54,000 departed, and the net migration loss number hit 43,000.
That’s the thing with Kiwis being lured to the sunny climes of Australia. Even as economic fortunes wax and wane, and immigration settings get tweaked, it continues to happen.
Today, we live in a world where skilled labour is highly mobile and demand has never been as fierce, including in this part of the world. And so given the ease with which people can move within the transtasman’s “common market” – which allows New Zealanders and Australians to live and work in each other’s country without restrictions – we can expect Aussie poachers to be circling.
While the recent turnaround in migration numbers on this side of the Tasman is heartening, it is clear that New Zealand Inc still has a formidable challenge ahead to retain and acquire skilled workers in a tight global market.
There’s only so much the Government can do. Getting the immigration settings in fit shape after a lot of faffing around is certainly helping, as has the historic pay equity boost for nurses, which puts higher-graded nurses more or less on a par with their Aussie counterparts. There’s an onus, too, on employers to play their part by making remuneration packages as attractive as possible.
And perhaps David Seymour will do his bit to slow the drift to Australia’s brighter lights by advocating for better pay for New Zealand workers.
Though I suspect the answer to that can be found in an Australian movie classic.
Mate, ya dreamin’.
Mike Munro is a former chief of staff for Jacinda Ardern and was chief press secretary for Helen Clark.
