Continuing our series of Migrant Tales, first hand accounts of the migrant experience of New Zealand taken from places around the net.
Today’s tale was first published on a NZ forum which has since closed down.
My partner and I wanted to move to Australia to work and live.
We tried for 2 years to get long term work in NZ to save for the move to Australia, got 1 job each but short lived as the employers now just kick you out when the “3 month trial” is up and we did everything to in our power to be the best workers possible so that we could keep our jobs as we needed them badly but the employers can say anything they like and dismiss you for no reason then just employ another as there is 40 or more going for every job they are never short of people and they get away with paying you at the lowest rate ($13.50 an hour) as they only have to pay you more IF they keep you on (pass the 3 month “trial”).
I did a welding course and got my tickets within only 14 weeks for the Christchurch “rebuild” got a temp job but didn’t last long then got a 2nd for a month then a 3rd for about a week then i was only getting work for like 1 – 2 days a week maybe if I was lucky, my partner had nothing! My welding tickets seemed to mean nothing in interviews anymore, After applying and door knocking, we were not getting enough to pay the $230 a week for the rent so I had to get to the doctor and say I was depressed because everything we did got us nothing (my only hope of keeping us off the street was a benefit) so I got a sickness benefit for 4 months and sold my car and moved to my partners mum and dads house and saved, we applied for jobs in Melbourne and the first 20 i applied for I got an email and he even offered me the job and I could start when we get there!!
4 months later I’m still working, my partner found work the 2nd week we got here and its awesome and we would never go back to NZ.
New Zealand is a rotten life of stress, worry and poverty, drunk teens, teen prostitutes, teens huffing butane and dieing, teens shooting their caregivers, parents putting their kids in the dryer and hanging them on the line, schools full of drugs and videos of kids bashing each other posted on YouTube, milk and cheese that costs twice its worth, no work, get paid less and taxed more every day, unemployment high but unemployment benefits getting cut and no jobs for the unemployed, food prices that go up every day, unsolved murders and rapes, police doing unthinkable crimes and getting away with it, a messed up government that act and fight like children, Asians and Indians that flood in every day and get treated like kings and we (new zealanders) get traded like trash and that’s less than 2% of the crap that goes on there! If we were still there we would still be FU%#ED and I reckon on the street with no house.
Sorry but its all true.
E2NZ.org 
Im embarrassed to be from this country. I currently live in Christchurch and i can’t even count how many times because i lost count where i have been snarled at yelled at by people from cars while im walking down the road minding my own business. Especially at the mall people are always walking around with an angry look on their face and if you so dare to even look in their direction you get an evil glare. Just today i was at bishopdale mall i had to go into the tavern to use the toilet i left after going to the toilet was walking across the parking lot and this man he had to have been 40 years old almost knocked me over and said what are you looking at than said do you wan’t a go do ya. He wanted to fight me i did nothing to this person except for walking past him minding my own business on my way back to my moped ready to go home. Ever since i moved to Christchurch i have never experienced so much hate and bullying in public and when on the road until i moved here. When i leave NZ i will never come back to this nasty unhappy nation run by bullies and a government who rips its own population off.
Im embarrassed to be from this country. I currently live in Christchurch and i can’t even count how many times because i lost count where i have been snarled at yelled at by people from cars while im walking down the road minding my own business. Especially at the mall people are always walking around with an angry look on their face and if you so dare to even look in their direction you get an evil glare. Just today i was at bishopdale mall i had to go into the tavern to use the toilet i left after going to the toilet was walking across the parking lot and this man he had to have been 40 years old almost knocked me over and said what are you looking than said do you wan’t a go do ya. He wanted to fight me i did nothing to this person except for walking past him minding my own business on my way back to my moped ready to go home. Ever since i moved to Christchurch i have never experienced so much hate and bullying in public and when on the road until i moved here. When i leave NZ i will never come back to this nasty unhappy nation run by bullies and a government who rips its own population of.