Plugging the brain drain

I have lived in three different countries in my life. The first, and the country I’ve spent the vast majority of my time, is the country I call home: New Zealand. The second, a country I lived in for a year in my early 20s and where I learnt that when it gets cold enough the hairs inside your nose freeze and it feels like it's bleeding, was Sweden. The third is the country where I currently live, and the country I used to tell myself I’d never move to: Australia.

Whenever someone used to talk about moving to Australia, the thought beyond my polite smile was always “Why bother?” To me, Australia was just a big New Zealand but with snakes: a country far larger in size, but relatively similar culturally and socially. If I was going to uproot and move country, why not go somewhere foreign and exciting?

What changed? I started my career. After a few years working in a challenging and intellectually stimulating job, moving to some far off-land where I couldn’t speak the language and I would have no hope working in my chosen field of the law didn’t seem so appealing. As my friend’s boss once told her, as you get older all you want is “a job and your teeth”. When it came time to leave my job in Auckland, I realised that for every one job in which I was interested in New Zealand there were ten more interesting and better-paying jobs in Melbourne, my long-held opposition to “crossing the ditch” quickly dissipated.

Every New Zealander living in Australia seems to respond with one word when they’re asked why they made the move: opportunity. It’s estimated that 640,000 New Zealand citizens live in Australia [PDF] – a startling figure for a country of only 4.5 million. In the year to August 2013, about 27,300 Kiwis made the move (for what it’s worth, well down on the 2012 high of 40,000). The Royal Society estimates that, “at the lower estimate of the expatriate population”, 780,000 New Zealanders live overseas, and 75 per cent of that number in Australia. Put another way, for every four outgoing Kiwis, three are bound for Australia – and many for what they see as better opportunities.

George Waghorn, 27, has spent almost a decade in Australia, living a life and working a job that barely exists in New Zealand. George first moved from Akaroa, near Christchurch, to Geraldton, over 400 kilometres north of Perth in Western Australia, in 2005. He was working as what was effectively a “fly in, fly out” seeder and harvester on cattle farms. He’d come over for two or three months for seeding, go back to New Zealand for six months, and then return to Australia for harvesting. What George was earning in those few months in Australia was enough to live off when he went home.

“I didn’t really intend to move over; I just came over to do seeding and harvesting. But I met my wife over here, and I’ve been stuck here ever since,” he says.

He eventually moved to the Gascoyne region in north-west Western Australia, to take up a role as a ‘jackaroo’ (what New Zealanders call a shepherd) on a 1.6 million acre cattle farm – a farm about four times the size of New Zealand’s largest station. Using aeroplanes to herd cattle, snoozing in the sun for the four hottest hours of the day and living 165 kilometres from the nearest pub, George grew to love the isolated outback lifestyle.

“New Zealand’s all close: you get used to the furthest distance you drive being from Akaroa to Christchurch, and you think ‘god, I’ve got to go to town’, but you’re back before lunch. Whereas out on the station you’re not back before the next day or late at night.”

The vast size is something Joel Lassey, 21, loves about Australia too. Joel and his Australian girlfriend and their three-month old son live in Wynnum, Brisbane. “Everything is a lot bigger. It’s a lot bigger and better over here,” he says.

Joel first moved over three and a half years ago. “Everyone was going on about the jobs and all the money to be made over here,” he says. “Basically, I came for what everyone else comes for: the opportunities.”

Joel is one of the over 128,000 Maori living in Australia. According to the 2011 Australian census figures, there are more Maori living in Southern Queensland, where Joel lives, than there are in Hamilton. “All of my family has moved over for the same reasons: better life and better opportunities,” says Joel.

The mass exodus of young Maori in particular reflects both their poorer job opportunities in New Zealand, and the perception that life is better across the ditch. A 2007 Te Puni Korkiri report on Maori living in Australia found that 87 per cent of survey respondents considered that their employment had become “much“ or “a bit“ better since moving to Australia. “I don’t plan to go back to New Zealand,” says Joel. “This is basically home now.”

And it’s not just young Maori. Becks Adam, who is 24 years old and Pakeha, moved to Sydney in January 2014, and her primary reason was simple: money. “I felt like I was getting nowhere financially in New Zealand. In fact, my financial situation was getting worse and worse,” she explains.

After graduating with an honours degree in science, Becks worked in a restaurant for six months because she couldn’t find any other jobs. She was able to find a more relevant position at a rehabilitation centre, but it meant moving to Waipukarau, a small town in the Central Hawkes Bay. She stayed in this role for over a year, but when her partner got a contract to play rugby for a Sydney team, she was more than happy to join him. “I wanted something a little bit bigger, more exciting.”

Becks is now working in administration at a university, and earning about twice the amount she was in New Zealand. Despite the higher cost of living in Sydney, especially compared to Waipukurau, she still feels significantly better off in Australia. “I feel like I have heaps more money to spend here,” she says. “Things like petrol, groceries and rent are actually less than in New Zealand.”

It’s a common observation from Kiwis living in Australia, but runs counter to a new and increasingly pervasive narrative – that Australia may no longer be the land of milk and honey that it was once cracked up to be.

Recent figures on comparative economic growth suggest New Zealand may finally be starting to catch up – or, perhaps more accurately, Australia is starting to face its own problems.  Though wages remain higher than in New Zealand, the Australian unemployment rate is currently higher; New Zealand also recently overtook Australia in the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Rankings (although much of that was to do with the Christchurch rebuild).

The dip in Australia’s boom, and the relative increase in prosperity back in New Zealand, has seen the number of New Zealanders joining the ‘brain drain’ dip significantly. Recent statistics show that 30,500 moved to Australia in the 2013/2014 financial year, compared to 48,000 the previous year. The number of people moving from Australia to New Zealand, however, increased: from 16,800 to 22,200 in the same period.

what happens when the 650,000-odd Kiwis in Australia decide to move ‘home’ – or if Australians decide to pack up and cross the Tasman themselves?

It raises an interesting question: what happens when the 650,000-odd Kiwis in Australia decide to move ‘home’ – or if Australians decide to pack up and cross the Tasman themselves. A recent report by the Royal Society of New Zealand that used census figures to identify potential challenges in New Zealand’s future considered this issue.

“Many people assume that when New Zealanders leave they will not return. But overall this is not the case – there are always New Zealanders returning after a lengthy absence overseas,” the report detailed [PDF]. In the year to March, just over 27,300 New Zealand citizens returned home after at least 12 months away – the largest number since the year to March 1991 (just over 29,500). The report also made the point that 23 million Australians have “unrestricted right of access” to the New Zealand labour market and welfare entitlements. As movement between the two countries becomes more free-flowing, there could be significant impacts for both.

After years of politicking about the ‘brain drain’, it feels unusual to be considering the reverse consequences. With massive pressures on the Auckland housing market and a job market sensitive to population increases – especially outside of Christchurch – we may need to be more worried about the brain overflow than about the brain drain.

Both George and Becks see themselves returning ‘home’ to New Zealand at some point – but neither have clear timeframes. “I’d like to move back one day. My parents are pretty keen for me to move back and take over the business. It’s just trying to get the Aussie wife over there,” George jokes. As for Becks, she’s keen to own a home at some point, and that seems even less likely a prospect in Sydney than it does in New Zealand – even with the higher wages.

I can’t imagine not returning to New Zealand. I’m invested there in a way I never was with Sweden, and don’t see myself being with Australia. Sure, the sunshine is nice, the money is good, the Greek food is delicious. But my roots don’t reach down into this sandy land. As trite as it is to say, sometimes you need to go away to appreciate what you have back home. For New Zealand, the real issue may be what happens if we all have that realisation at the same time.

This content is brought to you with funding assistance from New Zealand On Air.

Cover image: Flickr user Steve Arnold