Why I chose Australia over NZ

Buying a home is a privilege. Buying a home as a migrant on Australian soil is even more so, particularly when that land was stolen and never ceded by indigenous peoples.

It’s a privilege I never thought I’d have.

I grew up in a working class family; my parents bought their first house in Nelson when they were 23. It was an ex-state house, and cost just under $30,000.

My parents both had fulltime work before I was born – as a fitter and turner and a nurse.

At 21, I was saddled with student debt and didn’t quite know what I was going to do for work, having dropped out of law. I was unsure how my BA majoring in English would lead to a ‘‘proper job’’.

I’d spent years protesting on the steps of the library building at the University of Canterbury. Once even chanting at the then-visiting Minister of Education Trevor Mallard.

During my first year of study, the Clark-led Labour Government was still charging us interest on our loans as we studied. Student debt skyrocketed.

I lived in fear about my future and how I’d ever be able to afford anything.

I was firm in the belief that I’d never be able to pay off my student debt, and I was angry that I’d likely be footing the bill for the retirement of my parent’s generation. I wish I’d thought of the term ‘‘OK boomer’’ at the time.

There was little sympathy from my parents over the debt, and interest on it grew while I spent years travelling and working overseas.

Tired of the mounting interest, I came home to New Zealand for a year determined to get rid of it, so I could live more freely overseas.

I knuckled down and paid my student debt off within that year.

Now in my late 30s, I could be accused of being a traitor, by choosing Australia as home. It was a decision I thought long and hard about.

After spending a lot of my adult life working and living overseas, mostly in Europe and the Middle East, I’d tried to feel at home again in New Zealand in my mid 30s and I’d only lasted a year.

I loved being near my family and the landscape is still incredible, but I couldn’t connect in the same way I had.

I missed the Middle East and Europe, where I could walk down the streets and hear Arabic being spoken.

When I got to Melbourne in 2018, I realised I’d found the first place in 37 years that I’d wanted to properly put down roots. I walked down the Coburg end of Sydney Rd in Melbourne and heard Arabic again. Just one neighbourhood across, I heard exclusively Italian being spoken.

It was that type of diversity I wanted in a city.

I was earning at least $20,000 more than I would have been in New Zealand, and after a year of living frugally I had amassed a small deposit and was able to get on the property ladder.

My place is a small twobedroom apartment in the inner-north Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, and it cost approximately 17 times what my parents paid for their first home back in 1981.

I got to know every corner intimately while working from home during the pandemic, and discovered the lane ways and locals parks within our 5km radius.

I did miss the sea though, having grown up a hop, skip and a jump away from the ocean.

Arguably, I could have chosen to create a life back in New Zealand.

If TradeMe is anything to go by, I could own a threebedroom home in Christchurch with a backyard for about the same.

But Melbourne felt like home.

My place is a small two-bedroom apartment in the inner-north Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, and it cost approximately 17 times what my parents paid for their first home back in 1981.