A tribute to New Zealand’s family friendly immigration policy

Today I am the very happy recipient of a permanent residency of New Zealand. Here are some of my thoughts as I reflect on what this means to me.  

Taranaki, where my husband comes from. 

Firstly, I am relieved. This residency means that I can live with my husband “‘til death do us part” without applying for another visa (except for extensions when my passport expires). It is nice to end our series of visa-applications with a sigh of relief. 

Mauganui, where we escape to when we need to see the ocean.

Secondly, I am grateful. I am grateful that family means a lot in New Zealand. It was not hard for me to obtain this permanent residency. I was granted it because I am married to a New Zealander, and because I have lived here for more than two years on a temporary residency. These family-friendly immigration-rules reflect a beautiful aspect of New Zealand’s culture: namely that family is important. I could say a lot about this (and I expect I shall do so in a later post). For now I just wanted to say that because family is greatly valued in the New Zealand culture these values are also reflected in the immigration laws.

NZ sunrise to symbolise hope.

Thirdly, I am also hopeful. I hope that Norway too may enforce family-friendly immigration laws in the future. Currently, Norway’s family immigration laws works like this: a visa for your foreign spouse is based on how much money you earn rather than on the genuineness of your family connection. Though it is not intended this way, such laws sort of say that in our culture money is more important than family. However, knowing the sincerity of the politicians back home I need to give the Norwegian immigration system the benefit of the doubt, and conclude that this surely is not the values held by the majority of the members of parliament. This is why I can also be hopeful, because now that they are aware of this I know they will use the first opportunity to change the laws.