Some 5000 New Zealanders are heading off to start new lives in Australia every month. Many are young adults. Mine are two of them, writes Gill Higgins.
First, it was our daughter. Now it’s our son. Both in their 20s. Both chasing better opportunities. And both at risk of building lives across the Tasman for good.
That may sound dramatic. My kids would probably roll their eyes at me for saying it. Finding an Australian partner and settling there permanently is hardly top of mind right now.
But for many parents, it’s the thought that lurks in the background. I know several whose children made the move, fell in love, and never came back. It’s enough to make you wonder whether, one day, you’ll be the one following them.
It has certainly sharpened my interest in what life is really like in that country that feels so familiar — yet is different in all sorts of ways.
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My daughter Indi, 24, moved to Melbourne last year, a few years after finishing a conjoint degree in Commerce and Communications at the University of Auckland. She found work in her field in Auckland after graduating, but it wasn’t her dream job.
She saved, travelled through Europe, worked briefly in Amsterdam, and when the money ran low it was time to come home.
Except somehow, I knew home wouldn’t mean Auckland.
She felt the city was too quiet and the opportunities weren’t there. Almost all her friends had already moved to Australia or London. She wanted somewhere busier, somewhere that felt young.
So she made endless pros-and-cons lists comparing Australian cities and landed on Melbourne.
'There’s just so much more going on here'
A year and a half on, she says she has no doubt it was the right call. “I’ve about doubled my pay and I’ve doubled my weekly activities too, there’s just so much more going on here.”
So I wasn’t exactly shocked when my son Ben, 22, decided he was heading to Australia too, though his reasons are a little different.
Again, better pay is part of it. As a physiotherapy graduate, he expects an entry-level job could earn him $15,000 to $20,000 more than it would in New Zealand. A quick look on Seek also suggests there are far more graduate opportunities.
But Ben’s pull is also lifestyle. He’s all about the sea, surfing and sport. For him, the drawcard is “outdoor lifestyle, good weather year-round, quality surf, and being among like-minded young people”.
So in May, he’s off to the Gold Coast with two mates he’s known since primary school. One is into surfing. The other loves football. For them, it all stacks up.
Ben sees Australia as “a good transition” because it’s easy to transfer his qualifications. The harder parts — finding jobs and somewhere affordable to live — are still to come. But they’re young, excited and ready to give it a go.
And that’s the conundrum.
I’m genuinely happy for them. I want them to have adventure, opportunity and the best possible start. Right now, those things seem easier to find across the Tasman than they do here.
That’s the part I find hard.
It’s sad they don’t see New Zealand as the place that can offer them what they need, at least not yet. Maybe that will change. Neither of them is ruling out coming back.
In the meantime, let’s hope fuel prices come down. Time together matters, and it’s going to be hard when seeing your kids depends on the next flight sale.
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