Jack Tame

Yeah.

Cost of living in Australia, though, surprisingly high.

Some industries don't do as well.

There are definitely growing numbers of New Zealanders who are finding themselves on the bones of their ass in Australia.

In fact, we actually went over there and we filmed with this woman who runs a kind of community centre that helps people who are down on their luck.

And she said that 80% to 90% of the people that they're giving food parcels to and they're giving emergency grants to fly home to are New Zealanders.

Which is really surprising.

You've actually got to be organised.

You can't just kind of up sticks and move over tomorrow.

You've got to be a bit more thoughtful than that.

And then the other thing is the stuff you give up, and people often tend to underestimate it because you think the money's so good, but it's the stuff that's harder to measure in base statistics.

So it's the community, the connections, the having your village, the family, even just little things.

I was talking to a mate the other day who's lived over there for 15 years, and he said he just fantasizes about his kids being able to go down the road and have a play date with their cousins, and they can't do that, right?

That's a big one for me, actually.

Well, part of the problem is that they have family in Australia who say, come on over, right?

And you think, what could possibly go wrong?

And then you go over to Australia and then you have a fight with your family because you haven't got a job after a month or whatever.

And then you're on the couch and then all of a sudden you guys have a massive blow up and the kind of support network that you thought was there isn't there anymore.

And then all of a sudden you find you've gone through your savings and you don't have a job.

Yeah.