With the arrival of Pac Blue and Jetstar and to an extent Jetconnect the national bias thing seems to have disappeared to a large extent. Air Nelson is still enforcing the whole '50 hours recent NZ flying experience'. Crazy I guess, I can get a Captains seat flying a Jet around NZ but couldn't even get an Air Nelson interview for a FO spot on the Dash 8 (despite over 2500 hours on type) in my preferred base because I made the cardinal mistake of going overseas and working to gain experience.
Let me put it this way, the money is sh*t, the career opportunities are sh*t and lastly the flying is perhaps the most boring I have encountered anywhere. People put up with this though as living in New Zealand is worth it, that is how I feel anyway. Hopefully the more kiwis that return from overseas the more diluted the whole 'we do things better than everyone else' attitude will become.