Kiwis in Aussie say pathway to citizenship the icing on the cake
Monday, 24 April 2023
A pathway to citizenship is just the icing on the cake, according to Kiwis who moved to Australia in search of a better paid lifestyle.
Aucklander Shea Turner, a former Stuff reporter, has been living in Melbourne for about a year. He went over for a job packing freight, being paid $1400 a week as well as getting free accommodation.
“I can go out for a meal or some drinks with mates on a Saturday here and still have money to set aside for savings. It just means you're not sacrificing on doing the things you want to.”
He said the job had been good for a while, but it was “backbreaking” work. The new citizenship pathway has given him confidence to take the next step in his career.
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From July 1, hundreds of thousands of Kiwis in Australia will be able to apply for citizenship after living in the country for four years, undoing a 2001 decision that restricted Kiwis’ ability to seek benefits such as voting rights and social security.
Turner said the announcement was timely for him because he was considering studying to be a teacher, but it would be too costly to study abroad without citizenship.
“It’ll be a few more years before I can apply, but it gives me more options.”
He said he already had access to healthcare, but the knowledge that he could access welfare as a citizen, if he needed to, provided a sense of security.
Turner said when he heard the news, his first reaction was that it was “about time”.
“It's been a one-way street for a while in terms of what New Zealand was offering Australians compared to the other way round.”
Kerry Daily has lived in Melbourne for 33 years without being a citizen and said he hadn’t felt disadvantaged.
In fact, he said, he was looking forward to getting a pensioner’s card that would entitle him to free travel on trains.
He said Melbourne was similar to New Zealand, including its changeable weather, but there were more opportunities.
He’s been working as a supermarket manager for most of the time he’s been abroad. He left Westport after the butcher where he worked closed during a recession in the early 90s.
“Westport will always be home, but we’ve settled here and built a house.
“I’ll get around to getting citizenship eventually because my wife has been pushing me to do it, but I haven’t really needed to,” he said.
Despite having married an Australian, he still supports the All Blacks and holds his Kiwi passport dear, he said.
He suspected citizenship would be appealing to parents who want to send their kids to school in Australia.
Non-citizens have to pay for public schooling in Australia, although New Zealanders on a special category are able to apply for these benefits. Citizenship would grant them automatically.