A “historic” agreement allowing New Zealanders a faster pathway to Australian citizenship is the biggest change “in a generation” and will help the two countries forge even closer ties, the New Zealand prime minister, Chris Hipkins, has said.
Hipkins visited Australia on Sunday for talks with the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, after the decision to give New Zealanders the right to apply for Australian citizenship without becoming permanent residents first.
Before 2001, New Zealanders who came to Australia were automatically granted permanent residency, but under changes by the Howard government, new arrivals were placed on a special category visa.
This allowed New Zealanders to live and work in Australia indefinitely, but placed limits on their access to Medicare and welfare, and required them to apply for permanent residency before citizenship.
The change by Australia’s Labor government, first flagged last July while Jacinda Ardern was New Zealand prime minister, will mean about 380,000 New Zealanders living in Australia will have a faster pathway to citizenship.
Hipkins and Albanese attended a citizenship ceremony in Brisbane to celebrate the changes, which Albanese said “normalised relations that Australians [who are in New Zealand] have enjoyed for many, many years”.
“New Zealanders who are here in Australia, paying taxes, contributing to the economy should be treated with the respect and that’s what this provision will do,” Albanese said. “Strengthening our bonds, strengthening the relationship between our two great nations.”
Hipkins said the situation in Australia for many New Zealanders had been “challenging” and the announcement “will make an enormous difference”.
The pair also expect to create even stronger bonds between the two countries “in an increasingly complex world”.
“New Zealand, like Australia, is clear-eyed that there is a challenging strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific region,” Hipkins said.
“We both want a stable, secure and resilient region. And New Zealand agrees with the Aukus partners, that the collective objective needs to be the delivery of peace and stability and the preservation of an international rules-based system in our region. We have a long and positive history of working together on these matters.”
As Australia and New Zealand approach four decades of the Australia-New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement, Hipkins said he saw an opportunity for “further integration of our economies”.
But neither leader believed the changes would lead to a “brain drain” of New Zealand’s talent to Australia as both nation’s deal with labour shortages.
“We welcome all of your smartest and brightest, but I’ve never met a kiwi who wasn’t smart and bright and so the contribution that will be made is being made already,” Albanese said.
“I don’t think it will lead to more people from New Zealand coming to Australia, it will just mean that they’re treated better when they’re here. Simple as that, and that’s the objective here,” Albanese said.
Hipkins agreed, saying: “This is fundamentally a question of fairness.
“These New Zealanders are living in Australia, they’ve made their lives in Australia. And by not being able to access the pathway to citizenship they also haven’t been able to access many of the public services that they should be able to rely on.”
Albanese said recent data showed increasing numbers of Australian-born people were choosing to live in New Zealand, where the citizenship pathway and access to public services were already fast-tracked.
Hipkins said he did not fear a mass exodus, as New Zealanders knew the value of their homeland.
“I’m absolutely confident that New Zealanders living and making a life in New Zealand will want to continue to stay with the home of the All Blacks, the true home of the pavlova, and the lamington – there’s plenty of reasons for them to stay back home in New Zealand,” he said.
