yeah of course... nothing is risk free... the closest we get is government stock and evn those have fallen over in the past... but i'd generally accept that cash deposits in one of the big banks are as near as we'll get to risk free.. if the ANZ/BNZ/Westpac is going to be in a position to not be able to pay the money back that they have borrowed... it would be safe to sssay that the housing market would have crashed by 75% prior to this...

remember the OCR in NZ is 7.0%, and in australia yours is 5.5%... so theres a free 1.5% risk free to get in NZ which is a big portion of your difference...