New Zealand is not for sale, despite somebody in Australia trying to offload the nation of 4 million to the highest online bidder.

With a starting offer of just one cent, brisk bidding for the prime chunk of South Pacific real estate quickly boosted the price to $A3,000 before eBay pulled the plug on the auction this week.

"Clearly New Zealand is not for sale," eBay Australia spokesman Daniel Feiler told the New Zealand Press Association, adding that 22 bids had been made before the company acted.