Kiwi migration to Australia slows. Why?

Nenad - demographic consultant

Nenad’s background is in geosciences and geographic information systems. At .id, Nenad has experience as both as a demographer and population forecaster. His areas of expertise are place-based analysis, identifying spatial patterns in demographic trends, community profiling, catchment analysis and an understanding of role and function of different communities.

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12 Responses

  1. babcock_john says:

    Any half baked economist knows AU is in the crap. I live in Sydney and work in NZ. What does that tell you? Tells me there is no Food Processing, Dairy, Timber or anything else other than a run down minerals sector left here. I’m sick of the commute, so am moving to NZ before they shut the gate on AU citizens that are flooding there now. Kiwis winge about influx of AU citizens – watch this space – they’ll shut the gate.

  2. Jane says:

    In my opinion, Australia is heading into one hell of a recession. All the NZ’s here sitting in jobs that our own unemployed could have, would halve our unemployment rate overnight. I would not want to be a NZder here on an unprotected SCV as a guest worker and find themselves suddenly without work. They’ll have no choice to move back because the competition for jobs is extremely high. Companies are no longer hiring. It’s really bad 🙁

  3. I think it’s a bit too early to be counting the moving boxes that are coming into Australia from New Zealand, and not that we should be too concerned. I think it’s great that they are finding something to stay for in their own country – it just means that we need to buck up to do something to win them back that’s all! All’s fair in good competition anywho right?

  4. nepia kino says:

    its purely because of citizenship issues 99 present trust me

  5. Martin says:

    It is because of the immigration laws. That is what I think as a Kiwi national

  6. Guy says:

    nepia kino you could be right! “its purely because of citizenship issues 99 present trust me”

    With no right to vote!

    Or 3% of the aussie population (650,000) Kiwis! With family and friends support + being outspoken could – would have changed goverments! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Government Howard predicted that thou…

    Many ex-pat kiwi’s claim that Australia is now the ‘Land of Prejudice’. It is…!

    See:-

    http://www.lighthousecare.org.au/news/item/native-affairs Excellent Kiwi tv report Even kiwi Russell Crowe, rejected for Australian citzenship.

    http://www.ozkiwi2001.org/rights-compared/ Terrible & Unfair, it will be Decades of Kiwi Hardship for some & lack of fair rights / work rights for others, for this to be seen by the voting public for what it is…………. to work that out.

    http://www.ozkiwi2001.org/how-kiwis-in-oz-are-disadvantaged/

  7. Guy says:

    Kiwi’s Families, friends and all fair go Australians, including Tony Abotts wife, who is Kiwi should vote Labour. (Even with Bill Shorten & Labours lack of policies). Because the Liberal National Coalition with Tony ( who made the ‘Land of Prejudice’ law ), is still the very very mean & extreme right….. Just as WorkChoices was voted out by the public (with Kevin Rudd elected). as a fundamentally unfair law. So Liberal National Coalition legislation is still in the spot light for being unfair…& all Liberal National Coalition politicians.

  8. Mckenzie says:

    yes agree Aussies don’t won’t kiwis treat refugees better and look after other nationalities better .

  9. Simon says:

    The 2011 / 2012 LARGE spike was a result of effects from the Christchurch Earthquakes well above long term trends, I find it a little fascinating that $US35 BILLION disaster killing 185 people was missed in the blog.

    Australia is now loosing people to NZ, I think a lot of what is occurring at the moment is a real paradigm shift. Kiwis are now “comprehending” due to media coverage of this topic, living in Australia on a visa “classed” as temporary work visa BUT is actually a limited rights permanent resident visa is not viable long term.

    If a skilled Kiwi’s career is NOT on the official “skills shortage list” they have virtually no chance of Citizenship, but why does this matter?…..

    Well lets say after 40 years+ of working in Aus the Kiwi is made redundant age 61 through no fault of their own. At age 61 finding a job will be very hard. So the Kiwi has to survive 9 years till retirement with zero government assistance (during this time they have put down deep family roots in Australia). Even worse Aussie employers don’t get Australian government assistance for employing a aged worker that is a Kiwi so would prefer to employ a non Kiwi!.

    Of course this is one obvious example, but Kiwis that previously did not care about welfare (most in Aus), are now realiseing we can’t always control our own fate. The media of course are portraying “they want the dole” without mentioning the Kiwi employment participation rate was 10% higher than the Aus national average prior to 2001 when Kiwis COULD get the dole!. Kiwis have never been dole bludgers, Kiwis don’t move to Aus to live in poverty on the dole any more than most Aussies want to.

    In a nut shell us Kiwis are getting a little tired of working hard and being portrayed as unemployed Maoris on the Gold Coast all the time, the latest Australian media beat up is “Crime” which is a TINY bit higher than the national average 199/100,000 opposed to 196/100,000 people for the Aus national average, some years its been lower!, lets face it about the same!
    .
    I now would advise any Kiwis thinking of a change to think twice unless you are on the Aus official Skilled Shortage List and can obtain Aus citizenship. As for any Aussies thinking of NZ there is really not much to loose, you can apply for citizenship after two years living in NZ which “used” to work both ways as part of the bilateral agreement.

    • Hi Simon,

      Thanks for your interest in our blogs and your comment. While the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011 did definitely impact Christchurch City’s population and migration patterns, the effect on international net migration was not significant. TAs and district immediately outside Christchurch were affected (http://blog.id.com.au/2012/population/new-zealand/ongoing-impact-of-canterbury-earthquakes-reflected-in-the-latest-subnational-population-estimates/).

      I had a look at the December 2014 figures from Stats NZ (see below for link) and the Dec. 2014 numbers of Kiwis migrating to Australia were way lower than the 39,154 in 2013. They were in fact 23,275, so a decrease of 12,082 (30.9% less). Couple that with an even higher number of people migrating to New Zealand from Australia (23,275 in the Dec.2014 year) and all of a sudden you have close to a net neutral migration balance. Actually the net loss of NZers to Australia was still 3,797 in 2014 but this is a big decrease from a loss of 19,605 the year before.

      In my blog I made a crude prediction that the migration from Australia may go up/down by 10%. In reality, it increased by 19%. When Stats NZ publishes the Dec. 2015 figures here (http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/population/Migration/international-travel-and-migration-info-releases.aspx), it’ll be interesting to see how the trend changes. The November 2015 figures suggest we’ll see a net gain of residents from Australia for the first time in quite a while.

      Here’s a quick overview of the migration movements to and from Australia since 2009 just in case you were interested.

      2009
      TO Australia – 32,755
      FROM Australia – 14,793
      NET NZ/AUS – -17,962
      TOTAL NET MIG FOR NZ – +21,253

      2010
      TO Australia – 36,830
      FROM Australia – 15,842
      NET NZ/AUS – -20,988
      TOTAL NET MIG FOR NZ – +10,451

      2011
      TO Australia – 51,054
      FROM Australia – 14,186
      NET NZ/AUS – -36,868
      TOTAL NET MIG FOR NZ – -1,855

      2012
      TO Australia – 53,676
      FROM Australia – 14,880
      NET NZ/AUS – -38,796
      TOTAL NET MIG FOR NZ – +690

      2013
      TO Australia – 39,154
      FROM Australia – 19,549
      NET NZ/AUS – -19,605
      TOTAL NET MIG FOR NZ – +23,633

      2014
      TO Australia – 27,072
      FROM Australia – 23,275
      NET NZ/AUS – -3,797
      TOTAL NET MIG FOR NZ – +28,454

      Nenad

    • Regarding the second part of your comment – I definitely think there’s truth in that and with NZ’;s economy on the rise, as discussed here, moving to NZ has become an option for many New Zealanders here in Australia.

      Thanks again, Nenad

  10. Just released, 2015 December figures (http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/population/Migration/IntTravelAndMigration_HOTPDec15.aspx):

    2015
    TO Australia – 24,504
    FROM Australia – 25,273
    NET NZ/AUS – +769

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