New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says the Australian government is the most Kiwi-friendly he can remember, pledging to forge ahead with trans-Tasman work while relations are strong.
Last weekend, the Australian government announced changes to its citizenship pathway for Kiwis that will allow hundreds of thousands to become Australian citizens from July.
The policy has been hailed by both governments and those who stand to benefit, but attacked by oppositions either side of the Tasman.
The federal opposition wants to know the cost to the Australian budget.
NZ critics say Mr Hipkins has been “played like a didgeridoo” and it will see a mass exodus of Kiwis seeking improved working conditions.
In an interview with AAP, Mr Hipkins made clear his annoyance with the naysayers.
“I get a bit frustrated by the people saying ‘this is all to Aussies’ benefit and it’s brain drain’ and whatever. I just don’t accept that,” Mr Hipkins said.
“There’s 700,000-odd New Zealanders living in Australia already. This is not the defining thing that’s going to contribute to someone’s decision whether to move to Australia or not.
“What it means is when they do move to Australia, they’ll be able to access public services and New Zealand won’t be left picking up the tab while the Australians gain the benefit of all the taxes that person is paying.”
Mr Hipkins agreed the policy change placed an onus on his government to make New Zealand wages and conditions competitive.
“Absolutely. But that’s not just government, that’s actually employers as well,” he said.
“Employers have got to make sure that they’re offering something attractive that makes people want to stay here.”
In addition to the citizenship tweak, New Zealand has also won concessions from Anthony Albanese’s government to slow the number of criminals deported to New Zealand.
Deportations have roughly halved in the past year after Mr Albanese agreed to stop deporting Kiwis who have lived substantial portions of their lives in Australia.
Like the citizenship changes, it’s a policy that successive New Zealand governments have petitioned Australia on for years, without success – until now.
Mr Hipkins believes Kiwis have underrated the achievement.
“A lot of work went into actually getting a fair policy,” he said.
“It’s fair to say people probably haven’t recognised the fact that we did actually get quite a significant concession from the Australians on that front.”
The embrace from Canberra has Mr Hipkins thinking about next steps, which he believes should be increasing the ease of doing business.
“Getting some of the stuff that’s just been hanging over us for the last 20 years out of the way means that we’ve actually opened up space where we can now actually talk about those bigger and more exciting things, frankly,” he said.
“Things like how do we grow trans-Tasman commerce.
“Just relatively basic simple things that we can then work through with on the Australian side and say, ‘Can we do a few things to actually make this a bit easier?'”
That won’t extend to talks over a shared currency, or passport-free travel.
“If you look at the Euro experience, I’m not sure that we’d want to get into a situation where we lost control of our currency,” he said.
“Making travel as easy as possible between the two countries is certainly a long-held ambition, whether that’s passport free, I’m not sure we’ll get there.”
-AAP
