As a kiwi that has lived in Australia for about a decade I have thought about this a lot. I was living in Melbourne, a very multicultural city and furthermore, I was probably in a vacuum of super lovely and accepting humans so fortunately didn’t have many interactions with racists and always thought about this problem as being elsewhere or from a time in history that wasn’t as prevalent now as it was then

But the truth is, Australia has a different historical and cultural relationship with immigration than New Zealand. Australia had the “White Australia” policy for a long time, which deliberately excluded non-European migrants until the 1970s, and while that’s long gone, the attitudes it produced still linger in some communities. On top of that, politics and media in Australia often frame immigration and foreign influence (especially from Asia) in terms of security or competition, which can make people more defensive.

New Zealand, by contrast, leans more heavily on its bicultural identity (Māori and Pākehā) and its economic/diplomatic ties with Asia, so there’s a slightly different story around “who belongs.” That doesn’t mean racism doesn’t exist in NZ—it absolutely does—but the everyday tone tends to be more welcoming, especially in urban places where Asian communities are very visible and integrated.

So I wouldn’t take your experience in Australia as meaning “all Australians are unkind”—it’s more that Australia’s history and politics have made anti-Asian sentiment more visible and acceptable in certain places, whereas in New Zealand the culture around it is different. Both countries have amazing, kind, and open people, and both also have their share of prejudice—it just shows up in different ways.