Courtesy Nathan`s gritty 52 off 76 balls, New Zealand crossed the 200-run mark after Aussie bowlers blew away the top-six within 17 overs with 73 on board.
Nathan shared 48 runs for the seventh wicket with Jamie How (22) and 54 runs with skipper Daniel Vettori (44) but Kiwis could not bat for the complete quote of 50 overs and were all out in 45.1 overs.
Both Tait (3/35) and Johnson (4/33) bowled with pace and accuracy which made things difficult for the Kiwi batsmen in the match which is also being played for the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy.
After overnight rain, Australian captain Ricky Ponting elected to field as conditions were bit overcast.
Tait and Johnson were ably complemented by Shane Watson (1/9) and Brett Lee (1/29) and the pace quartet ensured that Ponting`s decision to bowl first was vindicated.
All of them pitched the ball fuller, got a bit of movement and were also helped by some lousy shots played by the Black Caps batsmen.
If Tait`s bowling was all about raw pace, Johnson got deliveries to swing away from the batsmen at a brisk pace.
Although Jesse Ryder pulled a couple of short ones from Johnson, none of the top-order batsmen were ready to apply themselves on a pitch which eased out with time.
Both Nathan and Vettori showed that it was not difficult to play shots once the batsmen got their eye in.
In the morning, the first to go was Brendon McCullum (16). The Kiwi opener used Tait`s pace to get two boundaries with upper cuts. One such slash off a delivery that had extra yard of pace ballooned up and was easily caught by Jason Krejza at thirdman