New Zealand now ‘home, sweet home’

Press, 12 March 1983, Page 1

New Zealand now ‘home, sweet home’

PA Wellington More people are finding that for them New Zealand is “home, sweet home.” For the first time in several years, the number of New Zealanders returning from Australia permanently exceeded the number leaving for Australia, said the Minister of Immigration, Mr Malcolm, yesterday. Last year, 11,137 New Zealanders came back from Australia while 10,945 left to live there, he said. • The Australian Labour Party spokesman on immigration, Mr Michael Young, had acknowledged that Australia had a special relationship with New Zealand which it wanted to keep. “Mr Young was reported as saying: ‘No interference with that, no underarm bowling,’ ” said Mr Malcolm. “If that is the way-the new Government is approaching Tasman migration, I am in full agreement.” Mr Malcolm said there had been suggestions during

the run-up to the Australian election that the new Government should impose restrictions on travel across the Tasman, but to bow to it would be short-sighted and solve nothing. “Restrictions on Tasman travel would damage the fabric of the wider relationshp between Australia and New Zealand,” he said. “The direction of movement between Australia and New Zealand changes periodically as economic conditions in the two countries alter. This is normal and to be expected. Large parts of the economies of the two countries are inter-dependent. In the long run it is the economies that will suffer if either side tries to choke the flow of people. We are not going to do it and I was glad to hear that the hew Government does not intend to either.”

Mr Malcolm congratulated the new Australian Minister for Immigration, Mr Stewart West, on his appointment.