Australia and NZ fighting for same skilled migrants, says Cullen

MELBOURNE - Australia and New Zealand are competing against each other to attract skilled migrants, New Zealand's finance minister Michael Cullen said today.

Dr Cullen, speaking to reporters before addressing a business symposium in Melbourne tomorrow, said the trans-Tasman neighbours are looking for the same workers to help boost their economies.

"Inevitably there is some degree of competition," he said. "We're looking for extraordinarily similar people -- it's the trades and technical areas which are in particularly short supply and they are the hardest for us to attract in many respects.

"We have a disadvantage because Australian wage rates are higher than in New Zealand."

The Government is trying to encourage hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders to return home. It is also increasing pressure on officials to fill migrant quotas as it tries to plug growing job vacancies.

The Australian Government is under similar pressure.

The Australian newspaper reported at the weekend that the Government would increase the skilled migrant intake by 20,000.

If the New Zealand Government has its way, Australia might find itself battling to keep the several hundred thousand skilled Kiwis bolstering its workforce.

Labour and Immigration Minister Paul Swain said this week: "There are potentially 600,000 working New Zealanders overseas and a lot of them are obviously in Australia. We are going to have quite a big campaign around that."

Mr Swain said it would involve better recruitment use of overseas-based immigration and foreign affairs officials.

He added: "There's a lot of Kiwis who have been away for maybe longer than five years who do not know exactly what has happened here. The fact that we have got an economy booming, the fact that we have skill shortages, the fact that we need them home."

The Government's immigration quota for the year is 45,000 - with room for 5000 additional places.

The Government has already indicated it would prefer the number to be closer to 50,000.

But with two-thirds of the financial year over, only 25,694 residency applications have been approved.

- AAP, HERALD STAFF