Homeward bound? Struggling Kiwis in Oz
Despite the Australian government opening some welfare benefits to jobless Kiwis, many are still stuck with no support. Nikki Macdonald talks to Kiwis who have been forced home and others running out of options.
After the tears came action. When the Australian government announced jobless Kiwis could access their superannuation to pay their bills, Mark Osborne saw the writing on the wall. ‘‘We realised that was pretty much – here is your escape card.’’
He, partner Chanelle and their five-year-old son Max had moved from Papamoa to Cooktown in Queensland about 11 months earlier, to start a restaurant. When that didn’t work out, they shifted to Cairns.
Apart from the crazy wildlife, tropical Queensland was a pretty nice life. Chanelle worked as a barista in a five-star resort and 34-year-old Mark drove airport shuttles.
They’d just paid bond on a new rental house, invested in a
$3500 Mitsubishi and bought a
$5000 Suzuki Swift on finance. And then the Covid-19 lockdown destroyed their tourism jobs overnight. Like many of the
600,000-odd Kiwis living in Australia, they didn’t qualify for the unemployment benefit.
‘‘Since March it’s been very, very tense for us,’’ Osborne says. ‘‘There were quite a few nights over there where we were just in tears wondering what the f... we were going to do.
‘‘We were trying to talk to the public about what was happening and more than once I was told to my face, ‘If you don’t like it, f... off back to NZ’. It was heartbreaking. So it was like, fine, we will.’’
They sold the Mitsubishi for $500, they still owe money on the
Suzuki. They lost half their house bond. Their flights from Cairns to Brisbane were cancelled with no refund, so they bundled Max and what was left of their lives into a rental car and drove 1700km through the night – more than the length of New Zealand – to catch a flight out.
They landed at Auckland airport on Easter Monday, a shell-shocked line of travellers arriving into full lockdown. A bus took them to So/ hotel for two weeks of managed isolation. There was no complaining about the conditions.
‘‘It was a huge relief, because things were just so chaotic for us, with our whole life just crashed and burned.’’
The inability of Kiwis in Australia to access the unemployment benefit has long been a sticking point in trans-Tasman relations. While New Zealanders can live and work in Australia on a special category visa, only those who arrived before 2001 are eligible for many welfare payments.
Successive New Zealand prime ministers have fought in vain to reverse the policy, arguing tax-paying New Zealanders are treated like second class citizens.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison appeared to throw jobless Kiwis a lifeline when he announced in March that New Zealanders on special category visas would qualify for a Covid-19 JobKeeper subsidy – similar to New Zealand’s wage subsidy scheme.
But the conditions meant many Kiwis still missed out. Osborne’s boss could not apply because the business was busy immediately before lockdown, with travellers desperate to get out, so he could not show the required 30 per cent revenue drop.
Others were not eligible because many Kiwis work in the gig economy and the payment only applied to permanent casual workers who had worked in the same job for at least 12 months.
The Australian Taxation Office, which administers JobKeeper, cannot say how many New Zealanders have accessed the payment.
Sue Materman, who runs the Kiwis in Aussie Facebook page, knows of few who qualified.
‘‘Most have had to rely on partners or parents till they managed to find another job. A lot of Kiwis in Aussie looked like they ended up having to go home.’’
Osborne is speaking from O¯ po¯ tiki, where the family is staying in a rented house. He got a job over lockdown as a security guard at the town’s bank, enforcing social distancing. That ended with a thank you and please courier back your uniform when restrictions ended.
Now he’s on a benefit and applying for jobs daily. He’s hopeful both he and Chanelle will find work soon. Max is traumatised by the constant moving, but they’re happy to be safe and welcome.
‘‘Financially, we lost everything over there. It was catastrophic, but at least we could come back . . . I don’t want to leave the country ever again.’’
There’s no knowing how many unemployed Kiwis in Australia have been forced home. An analysis of lockdown unemployment benefit applications found 4718 people put ‘‘returned to New Zealand’’ as their reason for applying.
That’s more than 10 times the 424 returnees in the same period last year. But it’s only 12 per cent of the total benefit applications – 45 per cent were Kiwis who had lost their jobs.
Whether they’re only the start of a surge of returnees remains to be seen. Stuart Drysdale may be one of many on the cusp of buying a ticket home.
A Scot who moved to New Zealand in 1996 and became a citizen, he crossed the ditch to Adelaide in 2011, bringing his then wife and family the following year. Auckland rent was chewing through half his IT consultant salary and wages were better in Australia.
He started a new gig in February. Exactly a month later he was made redundant.
‘‘I thought, I’m stuffed.’’ The JobKeeper announcement was a brief ‘‘Yay’’ moment, until he realised his employer was not eligible because it did not meet the 50 per cent loss threshold required for large companies.
In April, 55-year-old Drysdale drew down $10,000 of his $108,000 superannuation fund. ‘‘They graciously allowed us to access our own money,’’ he says.
That’s already gone on food, bills and rent. He can extract another $10,000 this week, but that’s it for the tax year.
To complicate matters further, Drysdale can’t just jump on a plane back to New Zealand, as his new wife is American so needs an exemption to go with him.
He’s also reluctant to leave or split up his 16-year-old and 19-year-old daughters, who live with him and are both settled in work.
‘‘I’m pretty pissed off with the Australian government . . . I’ve paid $300,000-$400,000 in taxes since I’ve been here. That’s a big chunk of change.’’
He might be eligible for a new permanent residency category available to Kiwis who earn more than $54,000 and have lived there more than five years. But he doesn’t have the $4000 fee he needs to find out.
So he’s now spending his days refreshing job sites and applying for every IT job he can do – Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland. He also applied to a supermarket, but hasn’t heard back.
If nothing changes in the next few weeks, he will be making plans to return to New Zealand. He’s already scouting for Auckland rentals under $250 a week that aren’t single bed student accommodation.
‘‘I’m stressing out, probably hitting the beers too much . . . I’ve got to pick a date. When I get to about $5000 I’ve got to start the ball rolling and make decisions.’’
When Stuff talked to Ethan Wheeler in March, he was down to his last $53. The 27-year-old moved from Rotorua to Melbourne in 2013.
He had been doing casual jobs in manufacturing warehouses. Until Covid-19 struck, there was always work. But because he wasn’t a permanent worker he could not get the JobKeeper benefit.
Now he’s had 43 hours’ work in three months. He needs 10-15 hours work a week to cover his rent, but it’s been three weeks since he worked a full day. Shifts are short and scarce and conditions have worsened.
The $5000 he drew down from his superannuation ran out three weeks ago. His mum and friends have helped out with rent when they could. A local charity is giving him work – he doesn’t like taking handouts so insisted on volunteering.
When he eats, he’s wondering where the next meal will come from. When he gets a shift, he’s fretting about when the next one might be.
With a history of depression, the mental toll is brutal.
Wheeler had a counselling appointment but had to cancel it when he got a shift. ‘‘Struggling doesn’t even begin to describe how this has left me.’’
Like other Kiwis left stranded, he is angry at the Australian government. ‘‘They said ‘We’ve made three bills to help New Zealanders, if it doesn’t help you, tough’ . . . They’ve allowed me in the country, allowed me to pay taxes. It’s wrong on so many levels.’’
Fourteen years of contribution seem to count for nothing for Polisi Fitz.
An audio account manager, Fitz moved to the Gold Coast from Auckland in 2006, with his daughter and ex-wife. He resigned his globe-trotting job last November and had a couple of good options lined up just before the lockdown. They evaporated into the Covid-19 miasma.
As did his hope of help from the government he’s paid about
$50,000 a year in tax to for 14 years. ‘‘Knowing how much tax I’ve contributed since the day I landed here, and knowing they weren’t willing to help any Kiwis that arrived here post
2001, was just mindblowing.’’
In theory, he should be eligible for a special hardship benefit, because he’s lived there for 10 years. But despite apparently ticking all the right boxes, he was knocked back. ‘‘I went from hopeful to rage in a few days.’’
He knows some New Zealanders who have received it, so he’s still hoping that might be an option.
Fitz isn’t keen on returning – job prospects in his field are better in Asia or the United States and he’s not keen to leave his 21-year-old daughter. But he can live off ever-dwindling savings for only so long. ‘‘I love living here . . . But it’s left me with quite a sour taste in my mouth . . . It’s pretty unfair.’’