But there were concerns it might not be so straightforward.
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton said we should be doing everything we can to bring people back and to bring people into New Zealand.
“But our work will be cut out bringing people back from Australia - their terms and conditions are far above anything we offer.”
Labour’s Health spokeswoman Ayesha Verrall said the country was not in a position to capitalise on any opportunities in the global market at the moment.
“There is a hiring freeze on back office staff, and the Government denies there’s a hiring freeze on clinical staff and yet I receive endless correspondence from nurses, from medical specialists, saying they cannot fill vacancies.
“So I believe the settings are highly restrictive and we’re not in a position to take advantage of more workers - workers that we desperately need.”
The Nurses Organisation said it would welcome any changes that would bring New Zealand domestic nurses home.
Chief executive Paul Goulter said if we could put together a package that could get them back, that was a good idea and they would look forward to working with the minister on it.
One of the things that had led to the nursing crisis was New Zealand had been unable to provide good jobs.
“That’s not just money, but also the conditions and respect for their professionalism. We consistently over the years, haven’t been able to do that, there’s been a lot of noise about it but the lived reality of nurses is that’s not the case.
“So part of the promise in bringing them back to this country has to be giving them good jobs - and it’s in that area I think we need to do some serious work with the minister and Health NZ.
This comes ahead of a new workforce plan for the health sector, which Reti said would be released in the next month or so.