Things began promisingly in the chase.
Latham struck the ball as well as he has in a while before giving a soft catch behind square leg.
Williamson was given lbw to left armer James Faulkner, referred the decision to the third umpire and found the ball tracker showed it hitting his leg stump.
When Guptill slapped the first ball of gentle spin from Travis Head to cover New Zealand were on a slippery slope.
Mitchell Starc produced a searing yorker which clattered into Henry Nicholls leg stump, BJ Watling went lbw sweeping at Head and Colin de Grandhomme, after slapping a solid six back down the ground, was caught by Head, very low to the grass at deep square leg.
The end came tamely, even though New Zealand, on comparative run rates, weren't in bad shape. Too much damage was done in too short a time to allow for resetting targets. Steve Smith finished the match with another spectacular one-handed diving catch to his right to remove Trent Boult.
Australia's bowling were strong and decisive, Starc in particular. He produced his best performance of the series, taking three for 34.
The first half of the match was given over to another demonstration of David Warner's ODI batting prowess, as he completed his seventh ODI century of the year.
Warner plundered a century off New Zealand in Canberra on Tuesday; this one - 156 off 128 balls - every bit as good.
It was the 11th century of his ODI career, his seventh this year and first at the MCG before being run out skillfully by Boult off the final ball of the innings.
Only Sachin Tendulkar, with nine in 1998, has scored more ODI centuries in a calendar year than Warner, who shares second spot with another Indian, Sourav Ganguly in 2000.
Warner is in the form of his career. He's making opponents pay.
This year Warner has hit 1388 ODI runs at 63.09, with a strike rate of 105.47. No one else comes close, other than his skipper Steven Smith, who is 254 runs adrift.
How he hurt New Zealand. That said, the bowlers generally did a good job sticking to the task deep into the innings. It was their best performance of the series, not that that's saying much.
Had Warner been caught at 18 - a hard running chance to Nicholls at deep square leg - the shape of the match would have been significantly different.
He had important support, after Australia had been put in a double Boult lock - Aaron Finch and Smith gone with 11 on the board.
But Warner ran the show, cajoling fast running between the stumps with his partners, clouting four balls into the crowd and he scored 156 while nine colleagues shared 108.
Boult finished with three for 49 with two wickets apiece for Mitchell Santner and de Grandhomme.
New Zealand fly home early tomorrow and will begin preparations for the visit of Bangladesh, which starts with the first ODI in Christchurch on Boxing Day.
