Mike's Minute: Our access to Australia could soon be limited

I couldn’t understand it at the time, but you may remember four years ago then-Prime Minister Ardern did a deal with Anthony Albanese over our access to Australian citizenship and welfare. 

Essentially, they gave us a bunch of stuff we previously hadn't had. 

We get to wander in any way and time we like, a deal no other country offers, but access to welfare and citizenship was always tricky. Albanese decided to soften the approach. 

Fast forward four years and Ardern is on the beaches of New South Wales and Albanese is still in power, but being overwhelmed by Pauline Hanson, who has made immigration a calling card. 

New reportage out of Australia yesterday now tells us officials warned Albanese at the time that the move he was about to make was a mistake. It was making it too easy for Kiwis to game the system. 

For whatever reason he ignored them. Now it's coming home to roost. 

The intake of Kiwis surged 38,000 in two years. As New Zealand went into recession, ironically because of the Ardern Government, more people left and it's only this year that flood has started to dissipate. 

In the meantime, Albanese has an immigration nightmare on his hands and increasingly we're being called out. 

Hanson wants to limit our access and, given current polling, may well one day get her way. 

But perhaps the interesting aspect of the welfare side of the deal is it gives us an insight into just what sort of New Zealander went to Australia. 

For all the talk of brain drains, which has driven no small amount of angst here, the numbers would seem to indicate it was more your welfare recipient, or potential recipient, who bailed from New Zealand for a better deal in Australia. 

Can I suggest that if that is the case, then are we a lot worse off for their departure? 

If the low hanging job fruit here decided to scarper for the welfare and beer of Queensland, how was it we actually lost out? We may have had a net gain, not to be too mean to those who left. 

But the stereotype of highly educated, highly skilled folks in demand might not have been the complete picture. 

A small irony being Ardern managed to mess this country up while also, as it turns out, mucking up theirs as well. That’s quite the trick, isn't it? 

Either way given immigration is now the hottest of issues, don’t be surprised if Albanese pulls the pin on us and cancels the deal. 

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