Its not just more jobs for more money over in Aus; working conditions are much much better over there thanks to their union movements maintaining influence while ours were deliberately undermined by the 80s "Labour" government, then the 90s National governments.

The fair pay act which Nactional Fist are scrapping would have finally started to bring the balance back into employment negotiations - and while some of it would have been to cause pay to go up, a lot of the focus would have been on ensuring consistent work conditions across industries.

Alas that's gone now and the gap between us & Aus will just continue to grow.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

If our unions are considered better, how bad is it over there?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not mentioned in this article - our corrupt, self interested government abruptly cancelling a bunch of much needed infrastructure projects when they came into government, leaving whole sectors in limbo and their workforces leaving for Australia.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

This is a massive driver, especially in the building industry. KO is the countries biggest builder, it employs a huge number of builders (as subbies).

Without the ability to forward plan, with the big KO projects. Building companies are going under.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

The article is pretty thorough and I think shows that this isn't exactly some crazy unheard of thing.

At a glance it seems this graph of NZer arrivals in Australia is not unexpected. I'm not convinced the COVID hole is even filled yet? As in all the people that would have moved to Australia but couldn't because of COVID. Based on this graph it looks like they wouldn't have all made it across yet.

graph showing a sharp drop in kiwis arriving from Australia over COVID then a sharp rise to higher levels than pre-COVID after

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Is the y-axis scale logarithmic?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

The y-axis is just crap....non-linear but not a log scale...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

No not logarithmic but now you mention it, it doesn't start at zero. That would throw off first impressions I think.

Still, I don't think the drop over COVID has been fully offset by the increase.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)

You'd be surprised how many Kiwis have fled to Brisbane. Not a recent trend by any means.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

I'm the son of one of them. Mum came over to Brisbane in the 60s. She married an Aussie bloke and lived on the West Island the rest of her days.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why Brisbane? I was there once. It was hot and muggy and generally unpleasant. I don't remember having a great meal there, I don't remember seeing anything particularly spectacular. Just seemed like a hut and muggy city.

Melbourne OTOH was dynamic and fun and had spectacular food.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But Brisbane at least has the Felon's Brewery right under that bridge. Really nice location that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

I didn't get a chance to visit that brewery. In fact the only brewery I visited in Australia was the little creatures in Fremantle which was in a large building like a warehouse. Good beer, good food but not a place you go for some peace and quiet that's for sure.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Government with horrible polices