I just take issue with some of your weird links, maybe they're meant to be humourous?

Depends if you're a fabbo intellectual or not

Dannigirl this thread is asking "Why did you leave NZ?" you've not answered that question yet.

Why did you?

Because it was stated early on in the thread that the thread was really for the Brits to state their reasons for leaving. Genesis in post 3 pointed out quite rightly we know why most young people leave NZ when they are young - to go on their OE. This was me. I was 26, had my social work degree, had a few years work experience in NZ. I am from a small city (Dunedin 120,000) I desperately wanted to do child protection social work...jobs are limited in Dunedin/South Island so it was either Auckland or London. I chose London, mostly because my boss at the time had just returned to Dunedin from the UK.

Child protection desires satisfied, suitable level of cynicism with the system present, older, wiser, married to a Brit, have one little girl and another on the way and feel very strongly that the future for our family is in NZ

Yay, do I pass?

This post make a lot of sense!!!! I absolutely agree with you, it is hard for me to return to NZ (I am friggin scared) but at least I have my family to help and support me when I get there....and NZ is familiar to me so I get to show DH the ropes (poor him).

I do have A LOT of respect for people that emigrate to an entire new country especially with a family in tow, as much as I love NZ and miss the land, food, culture, the kiwiness...what is comes down to is that in London we have very little family support and we need and want that support. Friends here are just not the same, although if my lifestyle in London was better maybe they would be. It depends on so many things.

I feel sad for your Bo. Times like this I wish we had a real bar so we could all sit, have a few beers/wines/whiskey chasers, a natter and put the world to rights.

Thanks Luvwelly, you too (be happy that is)

We left NZ in 2007 to go to Australia as my husband got a promotion at work (Australasian role) but based in Sydney. He works for a multinational and the opportunity & experience for him to progress his career was simply too good to pass up.

We are now back in NZ (have been the past year) and are thinking of leaving again- to go back to Sydney - when my current contract finishes in April of next year. Again the main reason is job opportunities ! We got moved back to NZ with my husband's work a year ago - were really excited to be coming back - and naively I thought my work experience in Sydney (in two senior contract Finance roles at two very large companies) would stand me in good stead to secure a juicy role back in Auckland. How wrong could I have been - simply very few opportunities around last winter due to economic conditions and getting told up against 100 applicants for some jobs plus totally scrutinized over why I had done recent contract work.
Luckily I am working now but only at around probably 60% capacity as the role I am doing could almost be part-time outwith financial year end. It's so frustrating to know you are capable of so much more but your role just doesn't allow or accommodate it - careerwise I definitely feel I have gone backward since coming back to Auckland.

Another factor for us considering leaving NZ again is also money & super. When we were in Sydney previously my hubs and I were earning around 45% more than what we are currently in NZ. I know money isn't everything and I'm not extravagant at all - but a high priority for me as a British expat away from my family for over 13 years & with ageing parents, is to get home to visit them more regularly and actually have a decent amount of super when I retire to perhaps spend a month or two annually in the UK with siblings & their families. Living in Australia definitely would make that more achievable & affordable - esp given that employer super contributions are going up to 12% vs the equivalent pitiful NZ Kiwisaver of 3%.

And finally I find NZ very small, isolated and parochial now that I have come back from Australia. I also find the economic outlook rather grim - we are now ranked 57th in terms of GDP per capita with Nigeria & Morocco bettering us and our standard of living since 2004 getting progressively worse.
Our environmental credentials leave a lot of be desired and since I first arrived in NZ to live in 1998, find the political leadership & Government rather weak, un-inspiring and stuck in a time warp (regardless of what party is in power). Personally I think the country is going down the pan and to be honest I don't think many people care that much either.

So our main reason is job opportunities and standard of living. Friends & family can be easily visited for long weekends & holidays between Australia and New Zealand.

I left NZ for money and because the OH had wanted to try Oz for a long time (I am a kiwi he is english).

Those are my only reasons.

If I could have earnt similar money in NZ I probably wouldnt have left.

I am in Sydney and I find the cost of living to be ridiculously high (I pay 60% of my weekly take home wages into rent compared to aout 25% of my weekly NZ take home wages, and a similar ratio applies to groceries also - as just one example) and the lifestyle here isn't that great.

Mostly though, I find living in Australia to be fairly similar to living in NZ except all the houses are brick here LOL

I am sure I could go into more detail about differences but at the end of the day my main motivation was money. I moved with the same company (a NZ company) and suddely my wages jumped....ridiculous

And maybe also because at 29 I had never left the North Island so it was time for a bit of adventure.

I miss NZ, I love my country....but who knows if and when I will ever be back (I dont go for holidays because I dont like flying LOL)

According to the IMF (2010), NZ is 32nd out of 183 countries for GDP per capita. Nigeria is 142nd and Morocco 117th on the list. Similar readings by the World Bank and we're 21st on the OECD list.

I think you may have been looking at Gross Domestic Product itself (which of course being a small country NZ will not figure highly on) instead of GDP per capita.

My mistake - yes stats are GDP - 57th in the world behind Nigeria & Kazakhstan and GDP per capita 20% behind average OECD countries (22 out of 30 OECD countries) according to www.pureadvantage.org

Yep you are correct - I was quoting GDP not GDP per capita.

However on a GDP per capita basis, apparently NZ is 22 out of 30 OECD countries which is still not a great stat

So you were comparing NZ's total output with that of countries who have tens (hundreds, in the case of Nigeria) of millions of people?

Whilst you were looking at GDPs, did you notice how close Britains is getting to Canada and Australia (with 1/2 and 1/3 of Britain's population, respectively)?

Yep, britain had it's day in the sun in
the 19th century. Then the US in
the 20th and now it's China and India's
turn. Everyone knew it was coming
but not as quickly as it has and hence
the reason why now western govts are
now trying to promote happiness
indices and quality of life measures
to distract us all from the true
underlying traditional economic stats.
Have read of various predictions of
GFC 2 by end if 2013 at the latest.

or you could say western govts are trying to sustain happiness by printing money and running up deficits, all this before their baby boomers have even retired. wait until that happens for the problems to really pile up

i think the mc broon debt binge of 1998-2008 will be remembered as britain's "last hurrah", an upwards blip in a pattern of terminal economic decline

but what do i know

Just as well you're going back to the economic powerhouse that is NZ then?