Australia is increasingly recognising it needs to provide social safety nets such as welfare for New Zealanders who have settled there, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says.
About 500,000 New Zealanders now call Australia home, and 200,000 arrived after a 2001 rule change which did not guarantee social security to Kiwis unless they gained permanent residency status.
The ministry's deputy secretary Australia, Pacific, and Europe Group, Chris Seed, said 40 per cent of New Zealanders who had left for Australia after 2001 were eligible to upgrade their visa, but only 5 per cent had chosen to do so.
"The numbers would suggest that most New Zealanders actually thrive and survive in Australia."
But he noted that the Australian Government had realised it needed to provide fairer access to benefits such as welfare to long-term New Zealand expatriates.