As everyone has said, there are pros and cons. Oz is very different from NZ - especially South Island. The Auckland area is similar in many ways to the Oz conurbations.
And that's the problem - and why I wouldn't want to live in Australia. It's the most urbanised country in the world. You can set off from the centre of a city, and an hour or so later you're still driving through the suburbs. They sprawl like crazy. OK, the suburbs are mostly pleasant and the plot sizes are large by comparison with England, but that's why they sprawl so much. If you want to live on the edge of open countryside, you're much too far away from the city for it to be convenient.
There's no equivalent to the English (or Scottish/Welsh/Irish) village. It's all suburbia or isolated settlements in the middle of the bush.
Adelaide and Melbourne have a temperate climate, but Sydney gets too hot for me, and Brisbane and Perth can be like ovens in the summer. And then there are the bush fires and the water shortages. The drought is serious and is affecting most areas, especially parts of Western Australia. We have friends up in Brisbane and they regard water restrictions as the norm.
No, sorry, but Australia is a big desert with a rim of green around parts of the edge, and the rim is getting smaller and hotter all the time.
NZ is a different story, apart from Greater Auckland which is also a big sprawl with lots of traffic and 1/3 of the population of the whole country. South Island is beautiful but cooler, and the south-west is snowbound through the winter. Christchurch is probably the nearest there is to a home from home! I could live in South Island quite happily, if they were silly enough to let me in.
Unfortunately wages are generally low, and many Kiwis go to Oz to make their money. There has been an influx of Pacific islanders into parts of NZ, especially south Auckland, and that has created quite a few social problems. I've never seen as much graffiti as around parts of Auckland.
Canada - haven't a clue, except that it's bleedin' cold in winter.
