- Number of visitors to New Zealand immigration website increases four-fold post the election
- 512 Australians registered an interest in moving to New Zealand
Scott Morrison, Australia’s conservative prime minister recently won a third 3-year term in the Australian elections 2019. The win surprised election analysts and led to a spike in the number of Australians looking at moving to their neighboring country, New Zealand.
Social Media was abuzz with people venting their frustration and expressing an interest in moving away from Australia.
According to Google trends, there was a spike in searches for “moving to New Zealand” from Australia in the two days following the announcement of the result. The New Zealand immigration website also had 4 times the normal visitors from Australia.
However, it is not necessary that all these searches were made by Australian citizens. The reports simply indicate searches from Australia. Hence, many of them could also be made by immigrants in the country.
Of the 11,500 people who visited New Zealand Now and INZ website on May 19th, 512 registered an interest in moving to New Zealand. This is the first step towards getting a visa for New Zealand.
However, since Australian citizens typically do not need a visa to visit New Zealand, it is difficult to say how many are actually seriously contemplating the move.
Moving Away After Elections
Australians are not the first to have such a reaction after elections. 7 days after Donald Trump was elected the President of USA in 2016, over 1,500 people applied for visas to New Zealand.
Similarly, the number of visitors from the UK to the New Zealand Immigration website was more than double after the Brexit vote in 2016.