Passengers at an airport (TVNZ)

21 July 2015

More Australians are making the one-way trip across the ditch than Kiwis going the other way for the third month running.

Before April 2015 there had not been a net inflow of Australians moving to New Zealand to live and work since 1991.

But for the third month in a row, the historical trend of New Zealanders heading to Australia chasing higher wages and conditions has been reversed.

The latest New Zealand government figures show that in June, it had a net inflow of 100 Australian migrants.

Australian arrivals rose 9.2 per cent to 24,100 with two-thirds being New Zealanders returning home.

India was the third-biggest source for long-term arrivals with 13,300 in the year, a 61 per cent increase from 2014, while China was the fourth largest with 10,300, up 16 per cent on the year. UK arrivals fell 2.3 per cent to 13,500.

The arrivals was a part of a record annual net gain of 58,300 new migrants for the full-year to end of June 2015.

Meanwhile, short-term visitor arrivals rose 9 per cent to 177,000 in June from the same month a year earlier, led by gains in Australian, Chinese, and American visitors. Short-term arrivals rose 7.4 per cent to 2.99.

[TVNZ article].