Two Kiwi couples moved to Australia for a better life – and they got that. So why are they now returning to New Zealand?
When Christel Broederlow and her husband Kevin Broederlow last lived in Auckland 28 years ago, their four young boys rarely saw their dad.
“We were earning really good money,” Christel (Ngāti Pāoa, Ngāti Maniapoto) tells the Herald, “but my husband was working 80 to 100 hours a week.”
She was a personal assistant and Kevin (Ngāti Porou) was a construction foreman. Still, they found it “really hard” to save and buy a home.
So, in late 1997, the family moved to the Gold Coast. When they moved across the ditch, they were earning less than they did in New Zealand. But Christel says, despite the step back in salary, life felt “expansive, affordable, and full of opportunity”.
“We left behind a damp three-bedroom rental in Māngere, paying $350 a week, and arrived on the Gold Coast to rent a five-bedroom, three-storey home with stunning views for [A]$210 [$255] a week,” she says. “Groceries for a family of six could fill two trolleys for around $200 and Kevin got a job with better hours.”
Eighteen years ago in Queensland, the couple started their own drafting business, which they continue to run remotely across Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.
“Australia has been good to us,” Christel says.
Australia had been mostly good to North Islanders Cameron and Andre Macfarlane-Healey, too.
They left New Zealand separately for Melbourne nearly 20 years ago to “explore the land of opportunity” before becoming a couple. They were close friends at the time Cameron moved to Melbourne in 2006, and he then asked Andre, “What have you got to lose? Come over to Melbourne”.
In their last year of living in Melbourne, they had a household income of more than $360,000. They had “really good jobs”, “a house” and “good friends”, they said in a recent episode posted on the couple’s YouTube channel about their travels.
“We built everything there,” they said. Cameron built his career in IT, and Andre in facilities and management. Both were working at law firms before moving to Christchurch.
Heading across the Ditch has long been seen as a rite of passage for many Kiwis. But in recent years, the growing departures have attracted international coverage. According to Stats NZ, a record 72,700 people left the country in the 12 months to September 2025, with many choosing to reside in Australia for better pay and job opportunities. Adding to the exodus is Dame Jacinda Ardern, who confirmed her family’s move in February.
At a time when many Kiwis are ditching New Zealand, the Broederlows and the Macfarlane-Healeys have decided to return for good, saying New Zealand is now the country that will offer them a better life. So what changed?
Christel and Kevin Broederlow are moving to Waiheke Island at the end of April.
She says Australia offered economic opportunity, but 28 years later, she believes the “balance has shifted”.
Christel started to notice how comparable their Gold Coast life was to Auckland’s. Since the start of the Covid pandemic, she says the cost of living on the Gold Coast has risen “dramatically”.
Inflation in New Zealand and Australia is higher than the countries’ respective targets of up to 3%. As of February, Australia’s inflation was at 3.7%, while New Zealand’s was 3.1%.
“Rents and property prices [in the Gold Coast] surged and have not come back down,” she says.
According to Christel, the rent for an average four-bedroom house for a family of six in the Gold Coast would cost more than A$800 a week. For the same price or slightly more, she says she could have a nicer property in a premium location in Auckland, such as Mission Bay.
“There are differences, of course. Fuel is more expensive in New Zealand, while some everyday costs like vehicle registration and insurance are higher in Australia.”
For Christel, quality matters more than cost.
“There is something about food in Aotearoa – the dairy, meat, kaimoana and the fresh produce – that is simply better,” she says. “I can drink the tap water in New Zealand without hesitation, even in Auckland City. But [in Gold Coast] we distil the water.”
What’s even more important to the pair is a reconnection to the land, to their whakapapa.
“This is not just a move,” Christel says. “It is a return to who we are.
“Australia can offer opportunity, stability, and growth – and it has for us, and we are ever so grateful for the life we have lived here and our sons and their whānau continue to.
“But there comes a time when the call of home becomes stronger than the life you’ve built elsewhere. For us, that time is now.”
Andre, 36, and Cameron, 44, moved to Christchurch six months ago.
Now, the couple are unemployed and living off savings after selling their Melbourne home and Tesla. They are travelling around in a motorhome filming content for their YouTube channel – but much happier. They say while Australia presents better job opportunities and salaries, it’s “misleading”, as the reality of day-to-day stresses is not often spoken about.
Cameron, originally from Whanganui, says going to work in Melbourne was one of the “biggest nightmares” for him.
The couple lived outside the central city. Initially, the daily commute to work was just over 30 minutes. Eventually, it became 1.5 hours because of an “overloaded public transport system”, Cameron says.
“The simple task of going to work ... just became hard,” Cameron says.
Basic routines such as grocery shopping became tiresome.
“Our day-to-day lives were getting so repetitive.”
“[The] supermarkets are packed,” Cameron says. “The queues at the checkouts are extremely long because there are a lot of people in such a small area ... it was becoming quite frustrating.”
On YouTube, Cameron said he felt crime was becoming more visible in Melbourne. “There were smoke shops and vape shops getting blown up ... the atmosphere was getting heavier and heavier.”
“You never saw the police on the road because they were dealing with protests in the city,” Andre, who is originally from Napier, says.
They say they realised “memories are more important than money”. Although neither is from the South Island, Cameron and Andre were drawn to Christchurch because it seemed like the “opposite” of Melbourne.
“People still say hello to you when you walk past them, they still have amazing coffee and they still have everything here that you need,” Cameron says. “Food is so much better than in Australia.
“We know we don’t have to spend a lot of money to be happy,” he says. “We’re more about enjoying what New Zealand has to offer in our backyard.
“That mental stress is totally gone from us.”
On what the next 12 months look like, the couple say they’re taking the opportunity to cross off one of their bucket-list items and travel around New Zealand in their motorhome. They will document it all on their YouTube channel, while planning when to return to Christchurch and if they should work for themselves or for another company.
“It’s hard to know what to do,” Cameron says. “I wish I had a crystal ball, but we’re trying to come up with plan A, B and C for when we do feel like the time is right [to return to Christchurch]. I kind of follow what the universe tells us to do.”
He says he has no regrets about moving back to New Zealand.
“I’m doing what I want to do,” he says. “I am glad that I made this choice to move back and be closer to family; it really feels like there’s a big weight off our shoulders.”
Varsha Anjali is a lifestyle journalist at the Herald. She is based in Auckland.