New Zealanders could lose their automatic right to live in Australia if a plan put forward by a Melbourne politician is approved.
Labor MP Kelvin Thomson wants to cap the number of Kiwis allowed in his country.
He said the open-door policy for Kiwis made it impossible for Australia to control its numbers and maintain quality of life, according to media reports.
He wants a relationship between the number of New Zealanders arriving and the number of Aussies permanently departing each year.
"This would give Australia control over our net migration number, which we presently don't have," he said yesterday.
"The trans-Tasman travel arrangement with New Zealand would need to be renegotiated to do away with the open door."
Almost a quarter of Australia's migrants are Kiwis, who have an automatic right to live here.
Mr Thompson called Australia's booming population "a runaway train" in a speech to a community group in North Melbourne and said annual net immigration should be cut from more than 200,000 to 70,000.
He wants to see the population stabilised at about 26 million by 2050, instead of the 35 million predicted by the Government.
This would prevent the "declining quality of life in our cities, the traffic congestion and the disappearing back yards and open spaces", according to Mr Thompson.
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