Movement from much of the Pacific to either Australia and New Zealand is currently expensive and onerous, with most citizens of most countries required to apply for visitor visas, and wait for their approval.
On Friday, NZ announced a pair of changes that will make travel easier: waiving visa requirements for nationals of Pacific Islands Forum member countries who already have Australian visas, and extension of visitor visas from 12 to 24 months.
"We deeply value our Pacific relationships. Being able to visit New Zealand to connect with family and friends is an important part of this," Foreign Minister Winston Peters said.
Mr Peters - on his 80th birthday - revealed the changes while on a visit to Tonga in a joint announcement with immigration minister Erica Stanford.
The changes fall short of the holy grail for Pacific Islanders - visa-free travel of the sort that Australians and New Zealanders benefit from when they travel through much of the developed world.
However, this remains a possibility.
The NZ government is currently reviewing its visa settings with the Pacific, which could see more significant changes to visa settings in the period ahead.
"Downstream is it likely to happen? Sometime from now, possibly," Mr Peters told reporters in Nuku'alofa.
"In this computerised age, we are finding it extraordinarily difficult ... to get this part of area of our operations right, immigration visas and all those things."
The lack of visa-waiver travel has been decried by several nations as unfair, especially given Australian and Kiwi travellers are often afforded visa-free or visa-on-arrival entry to many Pacific Islands - though they don't offer the same in return.
In 2024, Australia instituted a new Pacific Engagement Visa, which grants permanent residency to 3000 applicants across the region through a ballot process each year.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was asked about the prospect of visa-free travel for Pacific nations last year at the Pacific Islands Forum leaders summit, saying leaders hadn't asked him for it.
"People haven't raised visa arrangements, and we don't have any plans to change the existing arrangements," he said.
NZ's changes come into effect from July and apply to nationals of 12 countries: Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
People from the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau are already New Zealand citizens who do not need visas, while those from New Caledonia and French Polynesia are French citizens and already eligible for visa-free travel.
16°C