Immigrants are using New Zealand as a backdoor to Australian citizenship, and official figures show that nearly half of New Zealand citizens who applied during the last two years were foreign-born.
Almost every New Zealand citizen is eligible for a Special Category Visa (SCV) on arrival in Australia, and since July 2023 SCV holders have been allowed to apply for citizenship directly after just four years, even if they are not permanent residents, and SCVs are uncapped.
Of the 92,000 New Zealand citizens who applied between July 2023 and June 2025, 48% were born outside of New Zealand, according to Australia’s Department of Home Affairs.
Stats NZ figures show that almost 30,000 New Zealanders migrated to Australia in 2024, 35% of whom were born overseas.
That number was slightly higher than the 2023 figure, and the highest level of emigration to Australia since 44,000 left in 2012.
Brazilian immigrant Max Siqueira, who became a New Zealand citizen last year has since moved to the Gold Coast and told RNZ he knew some migrants who planned to do the same thing from day one, while others only switched to Australia when they “realised how easy it would be with the passport”.
“It’s really easy once you get the New Zealand passport,” Siqueira said.
“I just bought a plane ticket. At the airport, I gave them my passport and said I was moving to Australia. They said ‘Welcome, good luck’ – that’s it.
“The next day, I applied for a tax number and started working. It was that easy.”
Massey University professor Paul Spoonley told RNZ earlier this month that the phenomenon of large numbers of immigrants who gained citizenship only to leave for Australia needed to be invesigated.
“[It’s] quite different to anything we’ve seen before,” he said.
The revelations come as a massive surge in immigration is overwhelming schools in New Zealand, with principals saying they are being forced to turn away students and bring in new enrolment rules as a result.
Net migration peaked in the year to October 2023, and has since fallen, but the numbers of migrants in New Zealand on recent resident, work, student or other visas hit a record high of 607,023 at the end of October 2024, up from 380,388 a year earlier.
The recent spike in immigration has resulted in the country’s Asian population growing larger than the ethnic Maori population, while those of European background alone are just over 50%.
Stats NZ revealed in April that the Asian ethnic population was 973,700 after increasing by an average of 4.8% per year since 2018, overtaking Maoris on 911,200 with their much lower growth rate of 2.2%.
Census data from last year showed that the “European only” population was 2,790,354, or 55.9%, at the time of the 2023 Census, down from 59.8% in 2018, and 61.4% in 2013. In 1996 the percentage of Europeans was 82.4%, falling to 79.2% in 2001, and 76.7% in 2006.
Header image: The Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand, Anthony Albanese and Christopher Luxon (Facebook).
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