KEY POINTS:
The trickle of New Zealanders moving to Australia for good has turned into a flood, with the figure at its highest level in 19 years - a trend experts pick will only continue bar an economic miracle.
Figures released by Statistics New Zealand yesterday showed 27,200 New Zealand
citizens shifted across the Tasman in the 12 months ending November.
The number represents a 33 per cent jump from the previous year, and is the highest level since 1988, when 32,700 packed up for the lucky country.
But the trend is picked to continue - unless New Zealand manages an economic transformation to rival Asia's tiger economies.
"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," said ANZ economist Khoon Goh.
"Expect to see an ongoing number of New Zealanders going across the ditch."
It comes a week after a Government report confirmed a widening wage gap between New Zealand and Australia. The Economic Development Indicators 2007 report found the average weekly earnings of fulltime workers in Australia (in NZ dollars) ranged from $1025 in Tasmania to $1248 in Western Australia, compared to New Zealand's average of $906.
The report showed that while average salaries and wages in New Zealand have always been lower, the gap between the two countries has widened since 1997.
It also found that the equivalent of nearly 10 per cent of New Zealand's population was now living in Australia.
Dr Paul Callister, research fellow at Victoria University's Institute of Policy Studies, cited a Te Puni Kokiri report released in September which found around one in seven Maori now live in Australia, having been drawn there by economic opportunities, lifestyle and whanau already living there.
"There's a huge pool factor. It's not just from New Zealand to Australia. When they look at the data in Australia, what they find is that the states that have got the best economic growth and the best weather are pulling strongly within Australia as well, so we're almost like another state of Australia."
The same factors would be behind the latest figures, he said.
"We're a little bit like Tasmania. People are heading to places like Western Australia and Queensland because the opportunities are so great. They're particularly strong for people who have trade skills.
"In terms of the middle level skills, Australia's a place where you can earn a lot more money and you've got better weather to boot. The social services are pretty good as well.
"As long as there's a disparity between wage rates and weather, we're gonna keep seeing people go over. And it becomes a cumulative effect, like with the Maori in Australia, the more family members you have [over there], the greater the reason to join them."
Stemming the tide was not going to be easy.
"I don't see any easy solution - people talk about the longer term, such as if they continue with their drought, people will starting migrating back to New Zealand for water and those sorts of reasons. But I think there's a lot of room to manouevre in Australia for desalination within cities, a whole range of things."
Tax rates were unlikely to be a major drawcard, said Dr Callister, but overall economic opportunities were.
"If we caught up and we grew faster than Australia then you'd see migration the other way."
He cited work by Waikato University's professor of population economics Jacques Poot which found periods in the past when transtasman migration has gone the other way.
"There's been a history of migration both ways, and it goes in different directions according to which country's doing better."
FLIGHT OF KIWIS
* 31,600 New Zealand citizens emigrated permanently in the year ending November
* The majority moved to Australia (27,800), followed by the United Kingdom (1400) and the United Arab Emirates and Canada (both 400)
* 10,900 - 39 per cent - of those moving to Australia were aged 15 to 29. Another 6200 - 22 per cent - were aged 30 to 44.
* But New Zealand still gained more people than it lost over the same period. The gain of 6600 people is, however, well below the average annual gain of 12,200 between 1990 and 2006.