New Zealanders Are Moving to Australia in Record Numbers. Can It Get Them Back?

Posted on 05/09/2026
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About 41,000 New Zealanders moved to Australia in 2025, the most in 12 years, drawn by a more robust jobs market. When even former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern left, it made international headlines. Net citizen migration is at its lowest since records began, and unlike in past waves, people aren't coming home. Former PM John Key, Cambridge Provost Gillian Tett, and a young lawyer who says he doubled his salary by leaving explain what's gone wrong and what it would take to reverse it.

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