Former Prime Ministerial tyrant Rob Muldoon had a way with words and he'll amused from his sty in the sky about a comment he once made about kiwis flocking across the ditch for the dusty pastures of Australia.
Muldoon said they increased the IQ of both countries and that's probably more true today than it was then. When he made his observation you had little problem getting Australian residency which entitled you to the same stuff that we all take for granted, like welfare payments if you needed them.
That all changed it 2001 when John Howard shirtfronted Helen Clark and made sweeping changes in an attempt to curb the number of kiwis going to live there and immediately accessing welfare. Essentially the Aussies wanted to contain costs that might be incurred by letting our workers in, workers who have a higher employment rate than their Aussie counterparts.
We were issued with a rather appropriately named visa in the circumstances, a subclass 444. The vast majority of Kiwis living there fall into that category and although they may have been living there for decades, the visa's classified as temporary.
In recent years they've stepped up their disdain of Kiwis living there, deporting many of them if they've served time inside even though they may have gone there as kids with their parents. So for many the bad habits were learnt in Australia but rather than taking any responsibility for them, they've made it our problem.
