Departures of New Zealanders across the Tasman continue to dominate Statistics New Zealand's international travel and migration figures.
ASB economist Daniel Smith warned that on a seasonally adjusted basis, monthly departures to Australia showed no sign of abating.
"This is something that will likely continue until there is a significant shift in the relative strengths of the Australian and New Zealand labour markets."
Overall, the net flow of migrants improved in September, showing a small net gain of 90 people. The annual outflow also narrowed. New Zealand lost a net 3280 people in the year to September, compared with a loss of 4118 in the year to August.
Mr Smith said the September result was largely due to an increase in the number of permanent and long-term arrivals which rose by 4.5% month-on-month. The number of departures held "fairly steady", falling by just 0.7%.
"Of course, the departure story is dominated by Australia."
The annual total of departures to Australia once again held steady at 53,729, just below the peak of 53,904 recorded the previous month.
While departures to Australia continued at a near record rate, the net migration outflows would reduce some of the pressure on the supply-constrained New Zealand housing market, Mr Smith said.
Labour finance spokesman David Parker took another swipe at the Government about the number of New Zealanders leaving for Australia.
The total number who had given up on New Zealand and headed for Australia under National was now more than 170,000, he said.
"That's more than the total population of Hamilton, or for a South Island comparison, that's more than Dunedin and Invercargill combined.
"New Zealand cannot afford to continue to lose skilled workers every week to Australia."
The flow of young people to Australia must slow at some time and the Government would try to call that success, Mr Parker said.
Elsewhere in the Statistics NZ figures, China moved to third spot for total visitor arrivals in September, behind Australia and the United Kingdom.
For the year ended September, visitor arrivals from China for the first time exceeded arrivals from the United States.
Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said that was significant for the industry.
"In terms of the number of people operators are seeing, it is increasingly visitors from Asia, not Europe."
Tourism NZ had just completed a national series of workshops on preparing for the increase in arrivals from China and there were many in the industry working hard to support continued growth in that area and to deliver quality holiday experiences.
Although the number of arrivals was high, Chinese stayed on average significantly fewer days than visitors from the US and Europe. Mr Bowler said Chinese tourists' stay-days average was about half the US rate.
The release of The Hobbit films was expected to boost travel to New Zealand from the US and Europe, he said.
