More than 50000 Kiwis leave these shores for Australia every year. By that I mean they leave with no intention of coming back. They emigrate to Australia. Is this a good thing? I suppose as this article says, if the 50000 stayed in New Zealand then that would mean more unemployment which obviously is not a good thing as there is less money swirling around for people to buy stuff.
How should New Zealand try to keep these people in the country? I must admit that I was one of those people who left New Zealand for an extended period of time. I lived in Japan for 15 years only coming back to New Zealand at the beginning of 2012.
For Kiwis moving overseas, I don't think that it is a case of hating their homeland, they just see better opportunities elsewhere and Kiwis have generally been travelers. Maybe it is because of our isolation from the rest of the world.
How can this change? Here are ten ideas:
1. John, call Julia. Get the laws changed. Make it more difficult for Kiwis to join their Australian cousins. I'm not sure if this is correct or not but Kiwis can go to Australia and basically have the same rights as citizens. Is this correct? I presume that vice versa is the same.
2. We don't have capital gains tax which is good, why don't we cut out the income tax as well? I'm sure a lot of people would stick around if they aren't paying 10% to 33% to the government.
3. Encourage people to start their own businesses. Benefits for business owners should be numerous as they are in the end creating jobs and as we discovered earlier this is good for the economy.
4. Clean up the streets. I like going out and about on a weekend night as much as the next person, but what I get is drunk 18 years who have no idea what a drink is what drinking should be about, yelling abuse at me and being pricks. My response to that is to tell them to say what they are saying at 9am on Tuesday morning when they are alone. What is the saying? Safety in numbers? Anyway, that is a rant for another day.
5. Make it easier for people to purchase houses. Even with the mortgage rates at a low it is still quite difficult for first home owners to break into the property market. Come on John, make it easier.
6. Increase the minimum wage. I think that it is $13.50 at the moment, how about making that higher? I'm sure that you would retain the workers that are looking for more money offshore.
7. There is obviously a brain drain. Make it worthwhile for the doctors etc to stay. They don't want to be working 100 hours a week for stuff all money.
8. Become one country. Why not? Then they will just be emigrating to another island as opposed to another country. Problem solved. In all seriousness I can't see this happening as the respective country's economies are fundamentally different so it would be difficult to amalgamate.
9. Don't help the production of shows like The GC. For god sake after watching programs like that, don't you think more an more impressionable young people would want to go to the Gold Coast? I know I would.
10. Tell them if they go, they can't come back. (Rather drastic I know, but as they say drastic times create drastic measures.)
All of these ideas are all very well but at the end of the day you have people who go to Australia for career reasons but there are also people who go there for lifestyle reasons. No matter how good you make New Zealand, people are still going to go for the better climate, bigger cities, and better cricket teams.
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