Why New Zealanders are moving to Australia in droves
The Straits Times
New Zealand still attracts more people than it loses, with a net migration gain of 14,200 in 2025. Read more at straitstimes.com.
For decades, moving “across the ditch” to Australia has been an easy option for New Zealanders seeking higher pay and broader prospects. There is no visa required and it is just a quick, three-hour flight separating the two countries.
The steady flow – joked about in the late 1970s by then-New Zealand Prime Minister Robert Muldoon as “raising the average IQ of both countries” – has recently struck a nerve due to the high number of departures and news that former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has become the latest high-profile Kiwi to relocate.
Emigration is now feeding debate ahead of New Zealand’s November general election over wages, opportunity and what a sustained exodus might mean for the county’s long-term prospects.
The number of New Zealanders moving to Australia is at its highest level in 12 years, at about 41,000 people in 2025.
Departures to Australia averaged about 37,000 annually between 2005 and 2019, before dropping below 17,000 in 2021, when pandemic border closures curbed travel. The recent figure is still below the 2012 peak, when more than 55,000 New Zealanders left for Australia.
Statistics New Zealand estimates that more than half of citizens who leave the country are aged 20 to 39.
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