Northlanders Sharon and Gordon Booth spent more than two decades in Australia, living the good life, soaking up Queensland sunshine, with “fabulous” jobs raking in cash.
But since the 67-year-old and her husband returned to New Zealand they’ve fallen in love with Aotearoa all over again and have come to appreciate the adage ‘there’s no place like home’.
“New Zealand is really cool, and people need to know,” Sharon said.
‘You read lots of stuff about people going to Aussie and saying ‘it’s not as great as we thought it was’.
“It [Australia] offers you more wealth and more sunshine, and more cafes and things to do, but there’s no depth of friendship.
“People are coming and going all the time, you don’t build friendships like you do here.”
The Booths, who are both retired, contacted the Northern Advocate after a story about Northland farming couple Danica and John Wells who uprooted their lives and started afresh in Australia, working on on a 200,000-acre (80,937ha) organic cattle station in Queensland.
Gordon, now 72, was a traffic police officer on the Auckland Harbour bridge and Sharon was a nurse before they left for Australia with their young son Logan in 1984.
The couple, who still have family across the ditch, was only planning to stay in Brisbane for one year.
But Sharon got involved in working on the Expo World Fair “so we stayed”.
“I got offered some amazing jobs, so we stayed longer,” Sharon said.
“We loved it, we had a great life, we were involved in touch football, my husband had a karate club, and my son played soccer and rugby.
“We had a really good life, but once you get older and you stop playing those sports it was really hard to fit in somewhere.”
Though initially Sharon found it difficult to get well-paid work, she soon found her niche working at a major bank, starting out as a bank teller then being promoted to facilities manager for 19 years.
Gordon did lots of different jobs including owning a Jim’s Mowing franchise.
“When we went over there, I couldn’t get a job for ages, I was working in a fruit shop,” Sharon said.
“Then one day I was volunteering at a soccer club, and the patron [of the soccer club], a bank manager, walked by and said, ‘you love people don’t you? You’re the sort of person I want working in the bank’.
“It was a fabulous job with good money.
“We stayed for 23 years, made some money, and came home.”
Thousands of Kiwis have fled to Australia chasing better opportunities, higher wages, and greater quality of life as the cost-of-living crisis continues in New Zealand.
The Australian government has made it easier and more appealing too; in April 2023, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a new direct pathway to citizenship for eligible New Zealand citizens who have lived across the Tasman for at least four years.
This means Kiwis living in Australia who qualify will now be able to vote, and access full housing and health and welfare supports.
![Sharon and Gordon Booth with their son Logan [left] at Ruakaka Beach about 10 years ago.](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/UB2BYWBFFJHOJPMTVGF4HYLWGY.JPG?auth=33d339ac4ebaaa6e4a6f686675b806a68fa4abfba8748bd9272f4a1c7a99c77a&width=16&height=12&quality=70&smart=true)
Sharon said she and Gordon have 12 friends [six couples] who are on their way to the lucky country in the next few weeks.
She said she was “disappointed and sad” to see them go.
“They all think it’s bigger and better and there’s more opportunities and more money.”
There were subtle but important differences when living in Australia that never got any easier, even after all her time there.
“Aussie makes you tough and takes away a lot of your inhibitions – you have to put up with Kiwi slagging and it doesn’t stop.
“I love volunteering and people in Australia couldn’t understand you’d do something without getting paid.”
The Booths returned to New Zealand in 2007, and Sharon said she’s never been happier.
They have a 1.6ha property in Ruakaka with ocean views, and their son Logan, who followed them home a couple of years later, now lives in Mangawhai.
“This is where my heart is, this is my home,” Sharon said.
“I came back when I was 50, I’m so grateful we did that. It’s just magic.
“We’ve done stuff... I helped build a library, and I hope we’ve made a bit of a difference. I just feel welcome here.
“And the weather’s perfect because it’s not so flippin hot – and there are no snakes.”
Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with roading, lifestyle, business, and animal welfare issues.