KEY POINTS:
The lure of Australia for migrating New Zealanders has reached its highest level in nearly 20 years.
The transtasman outflow of permanent and long-term New Zealand migrants exceeded the inflow of Australians by almost 28,000 last year.
The figures, made public yesterday by Statistics NZ, show the net loss to Australia in 2007 was more than 7000 greater than the 20,709 net outflow the previous year. Last year's figure was the highest since 1988, when it stood at 33,400. The net flow to Australia is part of a 30-year trend influenced heavily by the relative strengths of the two nations' economies.
"Australia's incomes have been higher than New Zealand's for 30 years and they have been, for the most part, pulling away," New Zealand Institute economist Dr David Skilling said last night.
Other factors luring New Zealanders to Australia were career opportunities, housing affordability and the state of the health and education systems, Dr Skilling said. He urged New Zealand to compete aggressively with Australia to reverse the trend.
"There's no quick fix. It's not as if you can reduce tax rates and all will be well. It's a more complicated story than that. How do we make people and companies want to locate here? Part of it is tax, but it's also things like infrastructure, ability to access foreign markets from New Zealand, the quality of our education system."
National Party leader John Key said the acceleration of the exodus to Australia was "a vote of no confidence in Helen Clark's Government".
"Kiwis are tired of waiting for tax cuts and improvements in their basic living conditions. That's why record numbers of them are voting with their feet."
However, the Prime Minister said: "Of course we love to see Kiwis building their lives and careers here in New Zealand, but there will always be people who want to try their luck somewhere else."
She also emphasised New Zealand's net gain from the whole world (in contrast to the loss to Australia).
Business NZ chief executive Phil O'Reilly said the net loss to Australia was a tragedy for New Zealand, which was in the "longest-running skill shortage that we've ever had".
Some would have left to join family members or to retire, but many would be skilled workers.
AUSTRALIA BOUND
* Last year, 41,634 New Zealand citizens migrated to Australia "permanently or long term" - defined as intending to stay for at least 12 months.
* 13,636 Australians migrated to New Zealand.
* This was a net flow of 27,998 to Australia.
* It was the sixth year since 1997 in which the net flow to Australia was greater than 20,000.
* Despite the loss to Australia last year, New Zealand had a net gain from the whole world of 5491 migrants.
