9 April 2025
S. Fitzgerald
[FYI request #30446 email]
Ref: OIA 349-2024-25
Dear S. Fitzgerald
Official Information Act request: Prime Minister’s International travel
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) request, received on 17 March 2025.
You requested:
1. Please provide the date, origin and destination, airline and class of travel (eg business class,
economy etc) for all international commercial flights you have taken since becoming Prime
Minister. Please include the name the airline uses to describe each class (eg Air NZ uses
“Business Premier” to describe business class).
2. For each international commercial flight, please detail how many staff, including protection
officers, accompanied you, and which class of travel these staff travelled in.
3. On how many, if any, of these flights were you or your staff upgraded to a higher class of
travel, which flights were these, and what cabin class of travel were you booked in compared to
which cabin class you ended up in on the day?
4. What is the total cost of all international commercial flights taken since becoming prime
minister for you, and what is the total costs of all staff that have travelled with you?
Response
The Ministerial Services Group within the Department of Internal Affairs (the Department) are
responsible for processing and administering the payment of expenses related to Ministerial travel.
There may be instances where expenses for Ministers and members of the wider travelling party
are paid for separately, for example by other Government departments which the Department does
not hold records for.
Ministerial Services advises that invoices for the Prime Minister’s recent international travel to India
are still pending and they are therefore unable to provide the details you have requested.
link to page 2
1. Please provide the date, origin and destination, airline and class of travel (eg business
class, economy etc) for all international commercial flights you have taken since becoming
Prime Minister. Please include the name the airline uses to describe each class (eg Air NZ
uses “Business Premier” to describe business class).
Please find the below table that details ministerial international travel that the Prime Minister has
taken on commercial airlines since taking office.
Dates of travel
Origin
Destination(s)
Airline(s)
Number
of staff
5/03/2024 –
New Zealand
Australia
Air New Zealand
3
6/03/2024
16/06/2024 –
Papua New
Hong Kong
Air Niugini
3
20/06/2024
Guinea
16/06/2024 –
Hong Kong
Japan
Cathay Pacific
3
20/06/2024
8/07/2024 –
New Zealand
USA
Air New Zealand, United
2
20/07/2024
Airlines
15/08/2024 –
New Zealand
Australia
Qantas
2
16/08/2024
1/09/2024 –
New Zealand
Malaysia, Korea
Korean Air, Air New Zealand,
2
6/09/2024
Singapore Airlines
14/11/2024 –
New Zealand
Peru
Latam Airlines
2
18/11/2024
14/01/2025 –
New Zealand
UAE
Qatar Airways
2
17/01/2025
Ministerial Services does not centrally record the class of travel taken by the Prime Minister or for
each member of an approved Ministerial travel party. This information is recorded by codes which
vary between each airline. In order to retrieve this information, a line-by-line review of each invoice
would need to be conducted. This process would require a substantial amount of time and
resource that would cause a significant and unreasonable impact on other operations. Therefore, I
am refusing this part of your request under section 18(f) of the Act.
As is required under section 18A of the Act, I have considered whether charging or extending the
timeframe for responding to your request would help. However, Ministerial Services advises that
this would not remove the impact that a line by line review of invoices would cause to their
operations.
As per the guida
nce1 on Ministerial travel, Ministers (including the Prime Minister) are expected to
travel on no higher than business class for international flights. Premium economy or economy
class should be considered for shorter flights.
1 https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/publications/ministers-overseas-travel-process-and-cabinet-travel-papers
2
link to page 3
2. For each international commercial flight, please detail how many staff, including protection
officers, accompanied you, and which class of travel these staff travelled in.
The number of staff that accompanied the Prime Minister on each international trip are detailed in
the above table. The class of travel for staff travelling with the Prime Minister is booked in
accordance with the approved budget for the trip. Staff travelling separately from the Prime
Minister follow the Department of Internal Affairs guidelines for class of travel when booking
airfares. These guidelines state that an economy class fare should be booked for flights of nine
hours continuous flying time or less. For flights longer than nine hours, and where no stop over is
taken, premium economy may be booked, or business class if the staff member is required to
commence work duties immediately upon arrival.
Regarding the number, class of travel, and cost of Protection Officers accompanying the Prime
Minister on international trips. New Zealand Police have advised that the release of these details
would compromise the safety of the Prime Minister and therefore I am refusing this part of your
request under section 6(d) of the Act.
3. On how many, if any, of these flights were you or your staff upgraded to a higher class of
travel, which flights were these, and what cabin class of travel were you booked in
compared to which cabin class you ended up in on the day?
As per my answer to your previous question about class of travel, the class of travel is recorded in
codes on the travel card invoice received by Ministerial Services. These codes vary between
airlines and a manual review process would need to be undertaken to provide this detail.
Therefore, I am refusing this part of your request under section 18(f) of the Act.
4. What is the total cost of all international commercial flights taken since becoming prime
minister for you, and what is the total costs of all staff that have travelled with you?
The Department is required under legislation to release aggregated expenses on Ministerial travel
and accommodation on a quarterly basis on its websit
e2. These costs include airfare, and all other
costs associated with international travel. The cost of staff accompanying the Prime Minister during
international travel are included in the totals reported in these releases.
These releases cover up to 31 March 2025 with the next release due for publication on 22 May
2025. Therefore, I am refusing this part of your request under section 18(d) of the Act as the
information is already publicly available or soon to be publicly available.
You have the right to ask the Ombudsman to investigate and review my decision under section
28(3) of the Act.
Yours sincerely
Cameron Burrows
Chief of Staff
2 https://www.dia.govt.nz/Ministers-expense-releases
3
