By Ross Stitt*
‘We are the new Love Island. If you’re a single Brit, come on out because you might not be single for long.’
That’s what Paul Papalia, the Minister of Police for Western Australia, told The Times in his sales pitch to attract British coppers down under.
London’s Evening Standard reported that ‘leaflets showing smiling officers in scuba-diving gear and sandy beaches’ were placed on chairs at Papalia’s recruitment meetings, together with packs of Australian Tim Tams.
At a practical level, the vastly superior pay and conditions in Western Australia may prove the greatest attraction to pommy police officers. According to The Times, recruits with at least three years’ experience will start in WA ‘on a basic salary of about £50,000 compared with £30,000 for a constable with five years’ experience in the UK’.
It’s no wonder that over 800 police officers have already responded to WA’s pitch.
And it’s not just the police department that Papalia is recruiting for. He went to the UK and Ireland in search of doctors, nurses, teachers, electricians, and engineers. He had over 30,000 vacancies to fill.
His prospects are looking pretty good. The Times reported that the pay in WA across those occupations is at least 50% higher than in the UK and in some cases more than double.
That’s before you factor in the lifestyle advantages.
It’s clear that the international competition for workers, particularly skilled workers, is becoming more intense. According to a recent speech at the Australian Financial Review Workforce Summit, the Australian government is acutely aware that it needs to lift its game if the country is to remain attractive to skilled immigrants from around the world.
The speech was delivered by Clare O’Neil, the Minister for Home Affairs. She argued that ‘Australia’s migration system is broken. It is unstrategic. It is complex, expensive, and slow. It is not delivering for business, for migrants, or for our population.’
This withering critique is undoubtedly attributable to the fact that O’Neil’s party has been in power for less than a year. Nevertheless, she made some important points.
The key point is that the focus of Australia’s immigration system has shifted over time from permanent migrants working toward citizenship to temporary migrants, often unskilled, with no path to citizenship. O’Neil highlighted the following anomaly.
‘Today, it is relatively easy for a low skill, temporary migrant to come to Australia, but difficult, slow and not particularly attractive for a high-skill, permanent migrant to come here. We’ve got the system backwards. This focus on temporariness means that migrants cannot truly flourish.’
The following graph from the Australian Population Centre provides a breakdown, past and projected, of migrant arrivals by visa type. (These are gross not net arrivals).
According to these projections, permanent arrivals will be lower in 2026 than they were in 2017 – significantly lower as a percentage of total population. By contrast, both temporary and student arrivals will be higher.
The temporary versus permanent balance isn’t the only problem O’Neil identified. She complained that Australia trains many international students but then requires too many of them to leave, it fails to properly recognise the skills and qualifications that immigrants earn overseas, and the occupation lists it uses to determine workforce needs are out of date.
O’Neil also criticized the system’s bureaucracy. She said that the combination of complexity, cost and delay is ‘making Australia an unattractive destination for the workers we really want and need’. She provided the stunning example of Brian Schmidt, Nobel prize winner and academic, whose migration to Australia in 1994 was processed in just four days. A similar candidate today would probably have to wait six months and outlay thousands of dollars to get a visa decision.
O’Neil stressed international competition is dictating the urgent need for change.
‘Other countries are driving the war for talent, relentlessly identifying the skills they need, finding them around the world, and inviting those migrants to join their national endeavours.’
The Labor government’s plan to address the current problems includes:
- rebalancing the temporary and permanent mix of migrants,
- refocusing on skilled migrants,
- being more proactive in selling Australia to the migrants the country needs,
- fixing the bureaucracy, and
- better coordinating the labour market, the education system and the migration system.
The government has already increased the permanent migration cap by 35,000 to 195,000. Some critics say this is not enough. Nathan Sabherwal of recruitment agency Randstad Australia points to the example of Canada which has a much more ambitious migration program. With a population about 50% larger than Australia’s, Canada is planning for 465,000 new permanent residents in 2023, 485,000 in 2024, and 500,000 in 2025.
There’s no doubt that immigrants, foreign students, and international backpackers have flooded back into Australia since the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic passed. It is now expected that the projections in last year’s budget for net migration in the year to 30 June 2023 will be exceeded by a significant margin.
The federal government has shown itself willing to cooperate with state governments to assist attracting foreign workers. For example, as part of Western Australia’s current recruitment drive in the UK, Canberra did a deal enabling British police officers to get permanent resident status immediately and to apply for citizenship after four years.
That’s the type of practical action required to help ease current labour shortages across the Australian economy. The most sought-after migrants have choices. Many of them won’t come down under unless Australia simplifies the entry process and provides a clear path to citizenship. The government seems determined to facilitate this.
The other key issue of course is remuneration levels. Australian pay is emerging as a major draw card, at least in the market for British migrants.
That plus the promise of sun, sex, and scuba-diving. And Tim Tams.
*Ross Stitt is a freelance writer with a PhD in political science. He is a New Zealander based in Sydney. His articles are part of our 'Understanding Australia' series.
55 Comments
If the best hope to afford a modest home in NZ is to leave NZ then we're basically at 'failed state' status as far as our young people are concerned. We're asking young Kiwis to give up more and more to stay here and people act surprised when they leave.
I'm stuck here, medically, family, whatever. I'm digging deep to make it work. But it means living like a monk (haven't had a beer in a pub since... pre-Covid maybe? How much is a beer in a pub these days?) and rejigging living arrangements to claw something barely resembling a middle-class lifestyle together, and that's with more advantages than most. For people living in motels, renting, kids who are struggling to stay motivated to go to school or someone fresh out of uni without a STEM or finance degree... I genuinely don't know how they keep soldiering on. They shouldn't have to be so tough just to get by, but that's what we're telling them they have to, or else it's their fault for not trying even harder.
It's un-Kiwi. We've lost our way.
Context is everything. $15 in a downtown bar where I can't hear my friends over music and with a reasonable chance of some dickhead picking a fight with someone in our group, combined with a $50 Uber ride each way? I probably won't be rushing to spend that kind of money.
$9 for a beer by the side of the lake in Taupo with a view across the mountains with a woodfired pizza? Yea. I'll happily pay that once a year or so.
I wonder how small the percentage of punters making those sorts of calls in their budgets as things tighten up needs to be to totally stuff up the discretionary spend industries. My guess is it's lower than most people would realise.
It's un-Kiwi. We've lost our way.
What really is "Kiwi"?
Bunch of poms came to nicer weather, got a whole bunch of land for free (or cheap), exploited as much of the natural resources as possible, and now find themselves stuck trying to live a first world lifestyle on a subtropical island stuck down the bottom of nowhere. Or we've worn it out, let's leave and screw up somewhere else now.
Really there was a nice period of 40-50 years of material affluence and nice living standards, people somehow think that's supposed to be in perpetuity.
I don't know, wouldn't the removal of interest deductibility by National - and the resulting decrease in housing affordability give a bigger push?
It seems property is the biggest cost for workers as well as the biggest roadblock to potential business owners trying to set up something that actually creates and exports something.
National is also campaigning to bring more low-wage migrants into NZ, something also detrimental to young Kiwi workers.
Just a decade ago, in my final year of university having to compete with older, experienced international candidates for entry-level roles. That situation would've gotten a lot worse with heaps more international students and workers pouring into NZ each year.
National is a failed party. The only reason the could possibly get in is if labour looks worse (which would be really hard to do).
Everything about them puts people off. They are living in 2008 thinking voters prioritise tax cuts, we dont believe in climate change or want to sort it, that we want to pay for infrastructure upgrades on behalf of cheap immigrants who are here to make profit for rich people , that we want higher house prices and our kids to move away....
The list goes on. But i reckon their chances of getting in reduce every time they sau something (its not just luxon).
Chippy is onto something at the moment. If he can continue to talk and act like he wants a better NZ for all.. and take his coalition partners with him then he will get my vote for sure.
National needs a cull and rebuild asap. Read the room guys.
Can you honestly say that over the last 5 years this govt has made NZ a better place?
I cannot think of one thing that has improved and most have declined.
If someone had said to me 5 years ago that in 2023 there would be ram raids every night and looting following a natural disaster I would have laughed.
I think NZ will be a better place once people realise that you're going to get that with Labour or National - except one will let you keep more of your own money in the process. It's sad to have to boil it down to such self-interest, but I'm not sure how much more paternalistic head-pats the population can take while basic crown services unwind and policies get wound back in a way that sure looks a lot like austerity but with a Malibu Stacy "but she's got a new hat!" branding exercise so people still feel smug defending it.
Disagree - i think if National win may accelerate plans many people of my age group have about seriously thinking of moving. National really offer nothing for anyone under 65 unless you are on a high salary already. Both political parties however seem to be content at continuing to turn NZ into the worlds largest retirement village. All short term thinking.
It's a shame and it is actually kinda lazy to think that a change of govt will suddenly solve it all. Huge kudos for the Australian Government, they are doing more to improve pay rates and living conditions here in NZ by way of competition than any of our political parties.
But boomers take note - you better get a lot more used to grandparenting over Zoom. Because, in reality whomever wins in Oct, all that is left for many in this country is expensive housing, low pay, lack of investment in infrastructure and high costs of living. Our cities are still planned and built as if it was the 1950s, poor public transport and active transport options, no innovative thinking in our city design or governance. Nationals rebuild of Christchurch was exactly that sort of thinking.
I have always been passionate about NZ and wanting to stay and make the most of it. But i have become deeply despondent about being set up by Labour and National to simply work to fund the benefits and lifestyle of the boomer generation. Australia or Canada are looking very attractive right now.
Exactly, and why we left for Aus 2 years ago. The only regret I have is not being able to do it sooner due to covid restrictions. I tried hard, for 9 years, to make it work in NZ but it felt like every govt policy was directed at enriching a certain group at the expense of others. We love living in Aus and doubt we will ever return.
Why are you surprised?
It's just a meme that's trotted out endlessly. Australia's long term future in a climate change devastated world is even worse than ours. The shift back to El Nino will see searing hot temperatures (with fires etc) back on the agenda in the next 2 years. People some to have forgotten that it's just a few years ago that South islanders could literally see the residues from a burning continent drifting over them for days at a time. Anyone contemplating making Australia their home seriously needs to bare that in mind.
And it's not as though their housing market isn't massively over-valued either.
Surely that depends where you look. Against a backdrop of higher salaries, generous super payments and cheaper living costs (as well as cheaper consumer goods like phones, TVs and other discretionary items), a five or six year stint in a Queensland urban centre for a professional could set them up in a way that living in NZ never could, even once their house prices are taken into account.
The old 'we had four weeks of annual leave when three was the minimum, now we just have four weeks for everyone' thing is something I think people are generally only just starting to appreciate the effects of, given our levels of burnout and new-found grasp of mental health in the workplace. I have a suspicion that the shift to four school terms instead of three has also gobbled up almost all of the benefits for many workers, but I'd need to do some research into the timings of those changes to confirm. There sure as hell isn't enough annual leave for two working parents to supervise school holidays unless they don't really care about spending any time off with each other, which isn't really a recipe for successful and stable family relationships.
Interesting article this morning about how rises in NZ's minimum wage are not lifting other wages (which is usually how the process works). NZ now has the second highest minimum wage in the OECD (only just behind Australia's) but our average wage is in the middle of the OECD pack.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/300829967/minimum-wage-too-close…
Now there are strong rumours of a 45% tax rate cutting in at 225K.
Whilst I get Australia has a higher top tax rate - their tax free threshold means as of next year all Australians earning up to 180K will pay less PAYE tax than their kiwi counterparts on equivalent wages. Add in a new tax rate in NZ and that will mean all Australians will pay less PAYE tax than their kiwi counterparts full stop.
We are increasingly running the risk of losing our best and brightest to overseas and increasingly to Australia as Kiwis chase not only higher wages but a better standard of living. It took almost 3 decades for NZ to recover from the 1980's brain drain - can we really afford to have another 30 lost years.
Mate they are Dumb and Dumber..... stupid enough to think they could lease new energy efficient cars to low income famillies... stupid enough to think they could sneak co governance into the provision of water..... stupid enough Willie Jackson could put the merger on hold till better times (yeah right), stupid enough to think you could build a third of light rail to the airport and the numbers would stack up....... their seems to be no limits to their stupidity because their underlying economic analysis of problems is WEAK. They have 5 jobs fix health, fix crime and policing, fix infrastructure, fix education , fix housing affordability.
National needs to come out and say how they will do it better. Right now (pains me to say it) they would do things worse.
Labours advantage is that they are actually trying to do something... and chippy is trying to deliver what we want.
I agree with the 45% tax... happy to pay if chippy continues to spend on things that matter and will improve nz. The rich have done very well in the last few years and need to give back. Most people i know agree...
If some people are portable and place money over responsibility to the next generation i wont miss them. I suspect that they are the same people that own multiple investment properties and happy to screw the kids by driving up prices in many ways.
Nz used to be a cool place to live and felt like the older generation were working to help the younger ones.
Right now house prices are falling, there is a swing to productive business, education is improving, labour are trying via 3waters and central health to improve things in ways that need to happen... i dont want my kids saddled with a crap expensive decentralised healthcare system that pays over the odds for everythjbf or massive water bills amd creaking water infrastructure because councils dont spend whats needed . I dont agree with all the ways they are going about it but am glad they have the courage to try. Dont get me started on 7housesluxons attempt to restart the housing ponzi..
National just seem to complain about everything and throw solutions from the 2000s that didnt work then. They need to grow up read the room and get some policies that matter.. and lead by example (dump investment portfolios and invest in nz productive businesses would help).
When national realise that voters arent dumb enough to vote them in just because labour arent doing the best job then they have a chance. I want to see them work hard for it and come up with decent solutions to improve nz for now and next gen.
All very well to cheer tax at 45%, but ask yourself, after the wealthy have spent some cash on play things, what do they do with the balance?
Ill tell ya. They invest it, they provide capital, they create businesses.
Their brains are generally better than the smarts in Wellington - who want to take this cash and put i into their pet projects.
That's s the downside of taxing the achievers.
How many medical professionals earn substantially over 225k?
Most people in that range are overpaid execs or various flavours of speculators and rent seekers.
45% is not high enough for that group, we should be looking at 60%+ for that range. Use that and a land tax to fund big income tax cuts in the 0-200k range, where the vast majority of essential contributors actually sit.
I'd be very careful with this one - the extension of the brightline test to 10 years and the fact the test applies if you rent your house for more than 12 months (even if its your main residence) could result in middle income earners losing 45% of their gain.
ie you earn say $125K a year - buy a house this year in christchurch for 800K - move in 5 years time up to Auckland for a couple of years for a job - rent your house, decide you cant buy in Auckland and move back to Christchurch and then 1 year later decide to sell and upgrade (held the house for 8 years) - house is now worth $1 Million - according to the brightline test you have made a capital gain of $200K - your income is now considered to be $325K for the year and your paying 45% tax on $125K of that income.
Of course the person could choose to hold the house for 2 years (feasible) or choose not to move to Auckland - both decisions however do not contribute to NZ's productivity or growth.
the rich dont get caught by these laws- its the average Joe who gets caught, because they never think that these issues will apply to them and dont have the time or money to pay for specialist services to navigate them through these complexities.
Last time I saw a GP position advertised it was paying $180k-$220k so I imagine every surgeon and consultant with higher qualifications is getting a lot more than a basic GP. And even paying $200k the regions cannot attract enough GPs. Do you think taxing them more will help?
Okay. Say a surgeon is on a $250k salary. $25k of that ends up taxed at 45%. Do you really think they're going to say "You know what? Screw this I'm dropping everything and going to Australia" over an extra $38 per week in tax on a $3300 per week take home pay?
Why not just make surgeons salaries 100% tax free if they're such a precious commodity.
Interesting that the stuff articles states "Health care and social assistance roles also lifted 5.1%." That would be about 15-20% for nurses, and 3% for the rest of them.
Very few front-line health staff are on >$200K. Only the surgeons and consultants, and senior managers. The vast majority of frontline healthcare workers (not including doctors) are earning <$100K.
A little incentive -
If you are an Australian resident for tax purposes for a full year, you pay no tax on the first $18,200 of your income. This is called the tax-free threshold
Tax-free threshold for newcomers to Australia | Australian Taxation Office (ato.gov.au)
Its not just tax rates that need to be compared, its also tax benefits. In Australia you can salary package everything - want a new car, laptop, phone, fuel card, restaurant budget, extra holidays, childcare? You just salary package it so you are buying it with pre-tax income, which saves you 45% if you are in the top tax bracket. In NZ you can't deduct anything.
Come one Kiwis, we need to pump those numbers up!
I shifted over to Aus in June last year. I am making at least 3x what I was in NZ, and because I work FIFO and travel around on my week off, my living expenses are only about 1/3 of what they used to be.
I have been to the Northern, Eastern and South Western most points, checked out the NSW coast line, up around the GC, Brisbane and Noosa, Cairns and the Daintree, the Telegraph track up to the northern most point and the Margret river area over to Albany in the south west. All why paying twice as much off my mortgage.
I am trying as hard as I can to convince as many of my friends to come over, the opportunities are endless and NZ really has limited prospects for a yo pro looking to get ahead.
I am heading back for 2 weeks at the end of the month to do a loop around the NI visiting friends and family, it will be interesting to take the general temperature and see if I notice any changes.
I'm supportive of your recruitment efforts! I had the same thing when I moved to Sydney 10 years ago. Staying loyal to NZ is very costly and is a boring grind in comparison. NZ will replace you with someone more desperate and they don't care as long as they can create more tax free capital gains. (I'm in NZ now but only because I have an online business which started with substantial Australian savings).
I'm genuinely thrilled for people who can make this kind of thing happen, although it's an opportunity we should be able to give more of our young people who stay here.
There's probably going to be a halfway point that software and agile types are already embracing, which is a mix of relocating out of NZ cities and into smaller towns for bigger family homes and working remotely for US companies at much, much higher pay rates than local companies offer. How sustainable that is in this current climate - I'm unsure, but it may become something that spreads over time. At least with NZ to Aus a trip to the office is a few hours on a plane if you need to pop over and the timezones are pretty close.
If a worker is over 50 in NZ, then they're basically on the scrap heap or about to experience it.
Nobody wants them no matter how qualified or experienced they are. The "shortage of skilled workers" is really about ageism and/or the wants of business to open the immigration doors to get "skilled workers" on the cheap.
(Let the victim blaming begin.)
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