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ALMOST one in every 50 people in Australia was born in New Zealand, according to the first issue of statistics from Australia's census last year.
The figure of 355,765 people with a New Zealand birthplace represented 1.9 per cent of the 18.8 million who were in Australia on census night, last August 7.
The census results show that New Zealand remained the second biggest source of overseas-born people in Australia, behind Britain (5.5 per cent) and ahead of Italy (1.2 per cent). The number of New Zealanders had grown from 291,388 in 1996 and 264123 in 1991.
Last year's census contained new questions, one of which asked people to describe their "ancestry" instead of simply indicating where their parents were from.
A total of 72,956 people said they were Maori, and a further 123,314 listed their forebears as New Zealanders. A census spokesman said the ancestry question allowed people to declare links to cultures that were not necessarily identified by their place of birth.