New Zealand is used to people leaving — but not like this

Majestic scenery, clean air and fine wine have made New Zealand a “bucket list” destination for many travellers.
But more and more of the people who actually live there are giving up on life in Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud, with record numbers of citizens leaving in search of better things overseas.
While New Zealand remains a magnet for immigrants and tourists, official figures show more than 1,500 Kiwis are emigrating every week, with more than half of them heading across the Tasman Sea to Australia.
In the year to June, 80,200 New Zealand citizens moved abroad, almost double the numbers prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, just 24,900 returned, according to Stats NZ — the country’s official data agency. The net loss of 55,300 citizens (which follows a net loss of 56,500 in the year to April) smashed the previous record of 44,400 in February 2012.
Among those turning their back on their homeland is Jordon Boorer, who moved from the chilly, windswept city of Dunedin on the South Island to Perth in May, and two weeks ago was joined by his partner, four-year-old daughter and 16-year-old stepson.
The 32-year-old, who quickly found work as a digger driver in the mines in Western Australia’s far northern Pilbara region, said the move was already paying off.
“We came here for the lifestyle and more money. Lots of my friends are really struggling back in New Zealand. Here we get nine months of sunshine and my wages have doubled, which means we can live on one wage and don’t have to put the kids into childcare for ten hours a day,” he said.
Economic factors figure highly in explanations for why so many New Zealanders are moving overseas.
While Australia has so far avoided recession and enjoyed a booming jobs market since the pandemic — in large part due to its dominant mining industry — New Zealand’s central bank warned on Wednesday that its economy is on the brink of its third recession since the beginning of 2022.
The cost of living is off-putting, with inflation at 4.7 per cent, almost one percentage point higher than in Australia. Highly paid, skilled jobs are hard to come by and interest rates remain high at 5.25 per cent, despite being cut last week by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand for the first time in more than four years. Unemployment, currently 4.6 per cent, is expected to rise. Steep rents and a dearth of affordable housing are also blighting city life.
The mass departure of Kiwis has also been attributed to pent-up demand among citizens who were forced to put their overseas adventures on hold when the former Labour prime minister Jacinda Ardern shut its borders for more than two years during the Covid pandemic.
Moving overseas after graduating or leaving school is a well-trodden path for generations of young New Zealanders. Many regard what they call their “OE” — or overseas experience — as a rite of passage before eventually returning home to start a family. But there are growing concerns that more of those leaving will not return unless conditions in New Zealand drastically improve.
The broadly conservative National Party-led coalition government, which took office in November, has warned of a “brain drain” amid fears that the most talented New Zealanders are heading overseas.
Christopher Luxon, the prime minister, pointed out that this is a challenge governments have faced before, singling out the “massive exodus” of New Zealanders in the early 2000s when Australia’s mining industry was also booming. He said his government’s job is to “build a long-term proposition where New Zealanders actually choose to stay in this country”.
David Seymour, a government minister and leader of the libertarian Act New Zealand party — a member of the three-pronged coalition — told The Sunday Times: “It’s important we recognise that lots of people go and come back, but it’s also the case that we have a net outflow and that is not sustainable.
“There is also a cyclical element to this. Whenever New Zealand’s economy is performing worse than Australia’s there is a flow of people across the ditch.
‘But New Zealanders are also still reeling from poor decisions made by the previous government,” he added.
He cited the delay in reopening the borders, which has also held back economic recovery; a failure to build more affordable housing; and increasing red tape on businesses which has hampered productivity and contributed to a flatlining economy.
Disillusioned New Zealanders are being actively lured to Australia with the promise of better-paid jobs, spectacular beaches, and sunshine — and far more spare time to enjoy it in.
To help plug their own acute labour shortages, Australian employers — including state health and police departments — have launched aggressive recruitment campaigns to poach workers from New Zealand and countries further away including the UK and Canada.
Last year the Queensland police service launched a recruitment campaign targeting New Zealand officers with thousands of dollars in incentives.
Advertising in New Zealand media with the tagline “warmer days, and higher pays”, the campaign promised a $20,000 relocation bonus, as well as more than 300 days of sunshine a year.
Australia’s federal government last year also rolled out the red carpet for New Zealand expats by launching a new scheme to fast-track citizenship.
The latest official migration figures show New Zealanders aged between 18 to 30 who have traditionally driven spikes in migration continue to make up the biggest single group (almost four in ten) of those moving abroad.
But the majority of those uprooting now are in older age groups, with children, mortgages and established careers. Nigel McKee moved to Perth with his wife and two young daughters from the small Northland town of Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands in November 2022, just a few months after the borders were fully reopened.
The 34-year-old said he is being paid double what he was he was earning as an engineer in New Zealand, despite “doing a lot less work”. But he said one of the main reasons for the move was concern for the safety of his family, following a surge in gang-related crime under the previous Labour government.
“I’m a big bloke but I couldn’t go to the pub without worrying about getting into a punch-up with a gang member. We didn’t feel safe because of the gang presence. It was nuts. There is a general consensus among my friends back home in New Zealand that the grass must be greener elsewhere.”