I am married to an immigrant. It is not something I often need to confront. Sure, there are the annual visits by my much-loved mother-in-law, but you don’t need to wed a foreigner to enjoy that privilege. And as a young English lawyer, my wife seemed to assimilate easily enough with the locals. She quickly became one of us.
 
Yet shortly before Christmas my beloved’s alien origins took centre-stage. Literally. After a quarter of a century as a foreigner, she bit the bullet and became a New Zealand citizen.
 
It was a heart-warming occasion. Auckland’s Town Hall was the perfect backdrop for the pomp and ceremony of citizenship. And with prospective new Kiwis from no fewer than 48 nationalities, it felt like our own Olympics, but with everyone a winner.
 
Yet there was something profoundly strange about the ceremony. It wasn’t the setting. Nor the charming Maori elder from Ngāti Whātua, whose stamina in hongi-ing more than 400 new Kiwis was remarkable.
 
No, the problem was the oath (or the affirmation for the irreligious). It is the centerpiece of the ceremony, and applicants do not become citizens until they have taken it.
 
An oath to what, you might ask? Well, that’s what was odd. It was of allegiance to the Queen. Now that is hardly objectionable. And it was no burden at all for my English wife.
 
But there was something missing. The citizenship ceremony is the perfect opportunity to tell aspiring Kiwis what we stand for as New Zealanders, and what we expect of them.
 
Of course there is no exhaustive set of Kiwi values. Not everyone supports the All Blacks. Nor are all New Zealanders members of Greenpeace - or even interested in the outdoors.
 
But some values run so deep few could disagree with them. Respect for gender and racial equality, freedom of religion and expression, and respect for the rule of law and the democratic process. Surely, at least these we can all agree on?
 
Now, you might say an oath of allegiance to something as ethereal as Kiwi values would be meaningless. But it would be more meaningful than asking our new New Zealanders to swear their allegiance to a sovereign on the other side of the world.

It should take more than that to become a Kiwi.