Beatriz Moreno fell in love with Sydney when she visited for her daughter's birthday. Photo: Supplied
From next month, Kiwis will have an easier time becoming citizens across the ditch.
Currently, New Zealanders must first gain permanent residence in Australia before applying for citizenship but come July, those who have been living there for more than four years can jump straight to citizenship.
When Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the direct pathway in April, New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins celebrated it as bringing the two nations closer together.
However, his opponents said it could lead to a mass exodus at a time when New Zealand's workforce was already stretched thin.
For some Kiwis already living in Australia, the news was a relief, although they said it came with some limitations.
It took Beatriz Moreno 11 years to get her citizenship in New Zealand.
After arriving from Chile in 2010, she and her husband jumped through the many hoops of tourist visas, work visas, and permanent residency, before finally applying for citizenship - a process which took 18 months alone.
"It was okay with us because we weren't going anywhere," Moreno said.
"We actually didn't have any plans on coming to Australia at all - Australia wasn't even on the map."
But just two years after their citizenship ceremony, they found themselves packing up their Wellington home after visiting Sydney for their daughter's birthday.
"She had made some online friends from Australia, and I thought, 'What if we go to Sydney and you meet them, and celebrate with them?'
"And she was the happiest kid in the world.
"So, we came, and I fell in love with the city. So did my daughter."
An interpreter, translator, and language tutor by trade, Moreno said although she would have to build up her list of clients from scratch, in the long run there would be more opportunities for work in a city with a population 12 times bigger than Wellington.
However, she was concerned about what an influx of Kiwis could mean for the city's affordability.
"Renting and buying properties is going crazy, and it's going to get even more so with Kiwis wanting to come here.
"I think it's going to be massive."
Jenny Jones trained as a nurse in Taranaki but moved to Sydney in 1982. Photo: Supplied
While Moreno and her family were just starting out in a new land, medical secretary Jenny Jones took the plunge more than four decades ago in 1982.
"I came because I followed an old flame who I married, and then divorced," she said, laughing.
Jones trained as a nurse in Taranaki and said the workforce shortages New Zealand was experiencing were also felt across the ditch.
But she said Australian recruiters had an easy time picking up Kiwi workers for the simple reason that they could offer more money.
"In New Zealand, the baseline's quite low. They need to be encouraged somehow with some incentive."
Economic analysts Tim Armstrong and Claire Rollinson had been in Australia for just a few years between them but were already starting to think about their futures in the country.
Claire arrived in February 2022, fresh from a Master of Economics at the University of Otago.
She had a job offer in Wellington and was excited to join her friends there until a recruiter from Sydney-based HoustonKemp showed up at university.
"I decided to keep emailing her, and then why not just apply?
"Then I got the offer, and of course it was a lot more money, which was great, but it was also a better job.
"I thought, 'Why not? Now's the time; I have to move anyway. I may as well move overseas.'"
The pay was at least a few "tens of thousands more" than the next best offer in New Zealand, she said.
Tim, who moved over a year earlier, said Australian recruiters had a very strong presence in New Zealand universities.
"Most people I know were recruited out of their New Zealand university by these big companies, which often exist in New Zealand but end up taking recruits to Australia."
He said the extra pay was tempered with extra overheads: Flights back home which could cost thousands of dollars around Christmas, the need for private health insurance with no ACC equivalent in Australia, and interest-bearing student loan repayments.
While Tim did not know if speeding up the citizenship process would attract more Kiwis, he said it might entice those already in Australia to stay.
"I actually think it's a gamechanger," he said.
"Before, you never had the certainty of being able to rely on benefits if you had a short-term disability or inability to work; you'd have to take out some sort of private insurance that covers New Zealanders, because we're not eligible for Centrelink [social security] payments.
"But this new decision removes that and means that you have a greater degree of certainty once you become a citizen."
Kiwi children born in Australia were also winners under the new pathway. They would not have to wait until their 10th birthday anymore but would become Australian citizens at birth.
