Earlier this year, some Australian television channels and tabloids ran a series of media stories with titles screaming, “JOBLESS Kiwis are flocking to Australia in search of work - and demanding the dole.” The Kiwis have however used the spotlight to march across Australian cities for equal rights. Among the march organisers is co-founder of Iwi n Aus, Filipa Payne, who said current legislation degrades the livelihoods of Kiwi families in Australia and called for better access to healthcare, education, and employment and voting rights.

Kiwi-bashing is not without precedent in Australia. However, there seems to be persistent confusion about the exact nature of the threat says Peter Mares, adjunct fellow at the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University in the article: New Zealand's 'Bondi Bludger' and other Australian myths.

“It is unclear whether the core problem is that New Zealanders work too hard, and so threaten to “steal Aussie jobs”, or whether they are too lazy, and so threaten to sponge off the generous and unwitting Australian taxpayer,” he says.

Ms Filipa Payne in an interview with Newscorp called for urgent policy changes. She argues that these negative stereotypes are the sort of things that are actually preventing better policy for the Kiwis from being ratified.

Anglicare also wants the federal government to lift its ban on unemployment and sickness benefits to recent New Zealand migrants. Salome Swan, of Anglicare Southern Queensland, said jobless families were surviving on meagre Family Tax Benefit payments, noting,

“Some Kiwi migrant families had 24 people sharing a single house, with just one person working.”

Currently New Zealanders with a clean criminal record can enter, live and work indefinitely in Australia on a sc444 visa, which is granted automatically when they arrive.

The most recent Immigration department statistics show that as of 30 September 2013, there were 648,200 New Zealanders living in Australia on Special Category Visas. Analysts believe, close to 200,000 of these Kiwis are subject to the 2001 restrictions which deny New Zealanders a range of entitlements including welfare and various forms of government assistance from education and healthcare to disaster relief. Despite this, the Kiwi's continue to flock to Australia. It is estimated that New Zealand has lost 12 per cent of its population to Australia, as Kiwis search for work and higher pay across the Tasman.

Ms Swan said it was unfair that New Zealanders had to pay tax while working here, but could not access full welfare benefits if they became sick or lost their job.

New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully urged New Zealanders to be aware of their welfare rights before moving to Australia.

"New Zealanders planning to move to Australia need to make sure they are aware of their rights and entitlements and make sure they have back-up if things do not go to plan.''

To follow detailed commentaries please refer to these links:

http://ozkiwi2001.org/resources/how-kiwis-in-oz-are-disadvantaged/

http://theconversation.com/new-zealands-bondi-bludger-and-other-australian-myths-22391