Covid-19 outbreak: Kiwi exodus to Australia on the cards - departing diplomat Patricia Forsythe

Outgoing Australian High Commissioner Patricia Forsythe departs the country on Thursday. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The opening of New Zealand's borders could well result in an exodus of Kiwis across the Tasman to meet Australia's labour shortages, outgoing Australian High Commissioner Patricia Forsythe says.

The massive construction of housing that will be required after the floods in New South Wales and Queensland could add to the drain.

"In Australia, getting a tradie to do almost anything is going to be really, really difficult and so you see that the carrot, the magnet, coming over from New Zealand is going to become a real issue," she said.

"I don't think there is an easy answer because we pride ourselves on our seamless movement of people and our seamless economic market."

Unemployment is low in both countries: 4 per cent in Australia and 3.2 per cent in New Zealand.

The gap between average weekly ordinary time earnings is large - NZ$1878 in Australia and NZ$1392 in New Zealand (although tax-paying Kiwis in Australia are not entitled to many state-provided services).

A cafe in Western Australia's Broome last week advertised six new positions including a barista at a salary of AU$99,000 ($106,000).

Australian High Commissioner Patricia Forsythe says she would advise her replacement to learn about the place of Māori values in New Zealand society. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Forsythe said there would still be Australians who made the trip to New Zealand.

"I think there is still going to be our young people who missed their gap year who want to come over. Queenstown and its slopes are still going to be there to attract people.

"That image of New Zealand to Australians as a wonderful place to visit still looms large in the minds of many people."

Forsythe will head back to Australia on Thursday after a three-year stint that was mildly controversial at the time because it was a political appointment.

She had been a former New South Wales Liberal member of the state's upper house, the Legislative Council - and was a good friend of Foreign Minister Marise Payne.

But there was some symmetry to the appointment because it mirrored that of Dame Annette King by the New Zealand government to Canberra.

Forsythe spent her first year in 2019 dealing with tragedy: the massacre of 51 people at two Christchurch mosques by an Australian terrorist, and the Whakaari-White Island eruption that year in which 17 Australian tourists were killed.

Queenstown at dusk with the sun going down on the Remarkables. Photo / Supplied

Asked what advice she would give to her replacement, Forsythe said it would be to take time to understand Māori values and principles, and the place of Māori in the community – "the depth of the Māori values that underpin New Zealand society and the place of the Treaty as a living treaty today".

"That was the one thing that had surprised me that I had not picked up in my previous visits."

Much of Forsythe's work has focused on the Pacific but in the context of rising tensions with China.

Her appointment coincided with a deteriorating relationship between China and Australia, and a bid by the United States and Australia to assert the dominance of the US in the Indo Pacific amid China's economic and military expansion.

Australia launched its "Pacific Step Up", following New Zealand's "Pacific Reset" – both involving greater spending on and engagement with Pacific countries.

Forsythe said her brief for the Wellington posting was "Australia and New Zealand working together in the Indo Pacific".

Although no one had anticipated Covid at the time, that manifested itself in Australia and New Zealand working together to get Covid vaccines to the Pacific.

"It was seamless, just the working together of many, many agencies," she said.

"Australia and New Zealand have a lot to be proud of and we did get backed up well by the US, Japan and France. It showed our ability to work well together at a time of crisis."

Scott Morrison and Jacinda Ardern text "often and at will." The two prime ministers are pictured here in Melbourne with their respective partners in July 2019. Photo / Pool

Forsythe accepted the suggestion that defence and security were more important issues in Australia than in New Zealand, but said they always had been.

"Foreign policy and defence are very much front and centre of government and probably have been in a way that has not been the tradition in New Zealand and that, I think, is an ever-thus position," she said.

"We've always seen it in a priority sense whereas New Zealand, a smaller country, fewer people, your domestic policies have always been to the fore."

The new strategic alliance, Aukus (Australia, UK and USA), formed last year around the supply of nuclear submarines was a broader defence strategic technology agreement and Australia would be looking for other opportunities to involve New Zealand in it.

She mentioned artificial intelligence, cyber technology and perhaps niche areas such as space.

Political contact between the two countries is beginning to step up. Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta and Trade Minister Damien O'Connor visited last year. Defence Minister Peeni Henare is visiting Canberra this week where he will be holding talks with his Australian counterpart, Peter Dutton.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is due to visit Australia in July, her first there since February 2020.

Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta greets Australian counterpart Marise Payne with a hongi. Photo / Getty Images

Forsythe said that Morrison and Ardern texted each other "at will and often" and especially over Covid-19 developments when the two countries were learning from each other.

"That's great and I think it gives the lie to people who want to say to me about the relationship between Australia and New Zealand that it can't be close."

She thought describing the countries as "family" was apt but it was a relationship more like "cousins" than "siblings."

On the issue of deportations of offenders, even those who were brought up in Australia, Forsythe said that was an area of difference that would remain because Australians felt very strongly about it.

"We've put the welcome mat down for people from just about every country for a very long time ... We ask one thing, that people obey our laws, follow our rules."

Forsythe said she would miss three things most when she returns to Australia: what she calls the "mild" Wellington weather in reference to the temperature, the fact that when she has to look in the long grass for her golf balls she doesn't have to worry about what's in there, and the long-running TVNZ show Country Calendar.

"I absolutely love the programme. I love learning ... I have learned so much from watching that about aspects of New Zealand life."