Vicky Rose realised Kiwis were ineligible for certain levels of government assistance despite living, working and paying taxes in Australia for years.
Vicky Rose had been called lots of A words since moving to Australia. Agitator, annoying, arrogant, abrupt, abrasive — even an a#*%hole. But anyone in strife across the ditch would reckon she’s awesome.
Vicky Rose grew up in New Zealand, in a small town called Levin. As a kid she remembers seeing off the odd school friend who was leaving for a place called Australia.
All grown up, she did the same. A winter holiday on the Gold Coast visiting friends in 2007 was the clincher. At the time she was working at Citizens Advice Bureau at Lower Hutt and her former husband was in IT. With two young daughters, they felt the time was right.
They moved to Australia in search of a “better life”. But after an initial honeymoon period, she came to realise it wasn’t “sun, surf and sand”. Only the good-news stories were making it home.
“I started to see that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be,” she said.
She became aware of the struggles expatriate Kiwis were facing after volunteering at the Nerang Neighbourhood Centre in 2009, a non-profit community agency funded by the Queensland state government.
It was an old house converted into a community hub to assist people from all walks of life with a range of services. It opened her eyes to what she saw as a massive issue.
“I thought ‘why are all these Kiwis coming in getting food? What is going on’?”
More than half the patrons at the Nerang centre were, and still are, expatriate Kiwis. There were daily phone calls from people on the brink of homelessness who, for varied and complex reasons, were being turned away from Centrelink, a support agency delivering income support and other payments to Australians.
It was then Rose realised Kiwis were ineligible for certain levels of government assistance despite living, working and paying taxes in Australia for years.
She said the irony was many of those people were courted to Australia to fill jobs that Australians couldn’t fill — mining, nursing, construction, warehousing. It was a case of keep working hard and paying taxes, just don’t have anything go wrong with ya.
Rose felt an injustice in that there was little or no support for those same New Zealanders should they fall ill, need state assistance, or want their children to access higher education. Without basic government support, there were people falling through the cracks.
Kiwis working in Australia had contributed billions in taxes. They had been migrating to Australia since the gold rush of the 1860s.
In 1973, a Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement (TTTA) meant Kiwis and Australians could visit either country without restriction. Things really ramped up between 1976 and 1982 when 103,000 New Zealanders made the move.
But a change to Australian immigration law in February 2001 meant nearly every Kiwi who immigrated to Australia from that date did not qualify for social security benefits, despite paying taxes. On the other hand, Australians were eligible for government agency support after two years of living in New Zealand.
An automatic special visa handed out on arrival did not offer a direct pathway to Australian citizenship. While Kiwis could stay and work indefinitely, they were not entitled to the same rights and benefits as Australian citizens. They couldn’t even vote.
Visa criteria had made it hard for many Kiwis to gain citizenship. One visa required an annual average salary taken over four years that was more than 30 per cent higher than the average Australian wage.
“Kiwis come here to work hard and make meaningful contributions to their communities,” she said.
“I never met one Kiwi that came here to go on a benefit.”
The problem was exacerbated and highlighted by Covid-19, where an inequity in support for Kiwis living in Australia highlighted the whole pathway-to-citizenship issue and forced a lot of Kiwis home. It led to a 200 per cent increase in people seeking help from the Nerang Neighbourhood Centre.
After lobbying for years and getting nowhere, Rose started to work outside the square to keep the issue alive. She realised the only way to make political change was to make it political.
“You have to get in front of the right people. Conversations and networking are so undervalued,” she said.
She ran for Parliament in the 2016 New Zealand general election, contesting the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti in the Maori electorate with the sole intention of gaining more public attention to the issue at home. She ran the campaign from the Gold Coast.
The goal was never to win an election. She received just a handful of votes. But it opened up an entirely different can of worms. She started to receive hate mail from New Zealanders living in New Zealand, questioning her motives.
It was tough, but she kept her mind on the greater cause and tried not to take it personally.
“I’ve been called every A word you can think of. But it was about starting the conversation and keeping the conversation on the table,” she said.
Not to be dissuaded, she joined the Australian Labor Party’s branch in Coomera in 2018, identifying the need for wider political attention and support.
“I didn’t want to be a lone voice,” she said.
She called on more Kiwis to join. It was a deliberate attempt to get in front of people capable of making change. Behind her was a potential voter base of almost 700,000 expatriate Kiwis. There were 50,000 Kiwis on the Gold Coast alone.
The movement got the support of the Queensland Labor Party and the unions, which were petitioning for greater residency rights for expatriate Kiwis anyway. Other advocacy organisations like OzKiwi, Anglicare SEQLD and West Justice Community Legal Centre had joined in the lobbying. There had been some state government support, but it needed the attention of federal government.
Rose was able to network and get direct access to those in power. At a Labor Party conference dinner, she made a beeline straight for Anthony Albanese, who at the time was an MP, and is now Prime Minister.
“I said I’m from New Zealand, and he said ‘you’re our best mates’.”
“I said you’re not really our mates though, are you. Mates don’t treat mates like that.”
The conversation didn’t go on much further, but that frank and honest admission had found the ear of the future Australian Prime Minister.
A month ago she got a call from the Ministry of Home Affairs with an invitation to a confidential pre-briefing with the minister of the impending announcement about changes to the pathway to citizenship for Kiwi migrants.
From July 1, all Kiwis living in Australia for four years or more are eligible to apply directly for Australian citizenship. They no longer have to first apply for and then be granted a permanent visa — no more minimum income threshold or health check.
All children born in Australia to NZ parents from July 1, 2022, automatically acquire Australian citizenship, at a cost of $490. It would have the expensive application process for a permanent visa scrapped.
Rose said it was a victory for social justice.
“It was a huge win. Lots of people have been working on this,” she said.
“I thought they might make some changes — but I did not expect this. It’s been a journey, but I came from a role of seeing crisis every day. And I had a vested interest. I have two girls that did not have a pathway to citizenship,” she had said on hearing the news.
Rose said she has always been one of many who have been advocating on the issue. She simply never gave up. She has used all sorts of mediums and strategies in her lobbying efforts with politicians on both sides of the Tasman.
“You need some humour. It is a strategy. If you are extremely inappropriate, they’ll remember you,” she said.
Asked if she would consider going into politics herself, she said no way. Her strength lay in advocacy.
“And there are too many nude pictures of me out there.” she said, using that same humour.
