Much is being made of the current exodus of New Zealanders to Australia – about a thousand a week at last count. As an indicator of confidence in New Zealand’s economic environment, it is damning. But confidence and perception are not fact, which raises the real question: To what sort of an economy is New Zealand losing people?

On the face of it, an extremely prosperous one: Australia’s GDP grew by 4.3% last year, a figure that would make Mr English weep with joy; Aussie unemployment is as a low as 5.1%, and wages are about a third higher than in New Zealand. However, paring these figures reveals all is not well across the ditch.

Although aggregate growth was high Australia-wide, there are stark regional disparities. Queensland grew by 7.5%, and Western Australia by a staggering 14.5% - almost twice the rate of China. However, NSW and Tasmania have been shrinking for some time, while Victoria and South Australia are treading water. In the past quarter even Queensland shrank.

The revenues these figures represent also tend to wash through the economy in indirect ways.  The reality is that mining taxes from Western Australia are propping up federal revenues, much of which is spent on transfers and hand-outs in Melbourne and Sydney. The high Australian dollar also makes imports (mostly consumer goods) cheaper.

The low nationwide unemployment rate also masks the growing unemployment numbers, particularly hidden unemployment, on Australia’s eastern seaboard (NSW, Victoria, Queensland, and Tasmania). Economic growth is anaemic, with most of the eastern states in recession or growing very little. In Australia, they call it the two-speed economy.

For these reasons, the prospects are not actually that good for Kiwi jobseekers, unless they are moving north of Gladstone or to Western Australia. New Zealand’s growth rate is better, and there is no hungry resources sector forcing up interest rates and domestic prices. For all of Australia’s good fortune, more and more ‘for lease’ signs are turning up on shop fronts every day in the southeast.

It is often argued that Australia’s resources sector is an unassailable advantage over New Zealand. However, headline figures aside, the boom papers over the cracks of some serious structural economic problems.

Given all this, don’t be too surprised if you start seeing some Kiwi migrants return to New Zealand in the near future.