While tight border restrictions continue to be a key part of the Government's strategy to protect New Zealand against COVID-19, over the past year the Government has made an ongoing series of changes to enable more people to enter into New Zealand to support New Zealand's recovery and unite families as we have been able to do so and as it has been safe. Under these settings, around 2,000 partners and dependent children of New Zealand - based work or student visa holders who normally live in New Zealand have been granted a border exception, and 3,000 family members of critical workers have entered to date, and we have progressively made other changes so that more families could reunite. Last month, we made changes to the border settings to enable partners and children of onshore temporary work visa holders to travel to New Zealand to be reunited—these included the partners and dependent children of temporary visa holders in New Zealand who hold visas but had not yet arrived here when the border closed, the families of healthcare workers in New Zealand, and a number of other highly skilled workers in other sectors who are currently in New Zealand. Immigration New Zealand has also resumed processing offshore relationship-based visa applications for partners of dependent children of New Zealand residents and citizens, from September 2020.