My New Zealand friends assume as an Australian I am a permanent resident of New Zealand. Not so.
This is important when government and private members bills limit their extent to citizens and permanent residents. Such definitions do not include Australians to live in New Zealand long-term.
I can live in New Zealand for as long as I like because a regulation under the old Immigration Act exempts citizens and permanent residents of the Commonwealth on Australia of good character from needing to have an entry visa or a residency permit. Under the new Immigration Act, I am automatically granted an entry visa at the airport by filling out an arrival card.
Three types of people can vote in New Zealand: citizens; permanent residents; and non-citizens lawfully within New Zealand who do not have to leave by a fixed date. As I do not have to leave New Zealand by a fixed date, this curious legal drafting gives me the right to vote too.
If I had a dollar for every form I had to fill out in New Zealand which had a box for citizens, a box for permanent residents and not enough space for me to draw on my own box for Australians living in New Zealand long-term. There ends the venting on the hodgepodge nature of Australian residency in New Zealand.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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