Australia should slam the door on New Zealanders who just cause traffic jams and force up house prices across the Tasman, an Australian Labor Party member of parliament, Kelvin Thomson claims.

According to the Sydney Daily Telegraph, the Melbourne MP said the "open door'' policy for Kiwis should be restricted.

While Australia had struggled with 9600 asylum seekers arriving by boat, not a word was said about the 54,000 New Zealanders who moved to Australia in the last year, he said.

He claimed at the rate New Zealand migration was going, within five years 100,000 New Zealanders a year would move to Australia.

"Open-ended migration from New Zealand is one of the drivers of Australia's runaway population growth, which is fuelling traffic congestion, unaffordable housing and rising electricity, gas, water and council rates,'' Mr Thomson told Parliament.

"We are obliged to accept as many of New Zealand's 4.4 million residents who want to live here.''

Mr Thomson wants a limit of 30,000 to 40,000 New Zealanders a year.

"While some New Zealanders have dryly observed to me that New Zealanders coming to Australia increases the IQ of both countries, others share my concern, saying it is a mistake for New Zealand to educate and train young New Zealanders only to see them gravitate to Australia, which has higher wages and lower unemployment,'' the Daily Telegraph quoted him saying.

- © Fairfax NZ News