New Zealand’s Immigration Minister Iain Lees Galloways recently announced that the country is lifting border restrictions for immediate family members to reunite with their New Zealand-resident relatives without needing to be accompanied by them through the border. 

“Cabinet agreed that the partners and dependents of New Zealand citizens and residents will be able to travel to New Zealand without having to travel with their New Zealand resident or citizen partners,” announced Galloways. “So that’s a step as part of this careful and cautious lifting of the restrictions that we’re going to have to continue to pursue.”

In the rest of his statement, Galloways announced that the next focus is to assist temporary visa holders who have made lives in New Zealand but are currently unable to travel to the country. 

“That’s the next group of people that we’re working on policy around, to support and facilitate their travel back to New Zealand and we estimate that there’s probably around 10,000 people who you would consider ordinarily resident in New Zealand, who are unable to travel here at the moment. 

“We need to work through how, in a careful and managed fashion, we can allow those people to return to New Zealand.”