MINISTRY OF BUSINESS, INNOVATION & EMPLOYMENT HIKINA WHAKATUTUKI 14 November 2018 Matthew Adair [email address] Ref: DOIA 1819-0633 Dear Matthew Thank you for your email of 21 October 2018 requesting the following information under the Official Information Act 1982 (the OJA): I have a request regarding statistics relating to all visa decisions where an applicant has been declined a visa due to the risk they posed to New Zealand's international reputation. Specifically I request: • Statistics held on the country of origin of ALL applicants that been declined a residence visa from 2004 to 2018 due to character policy AS.30 I AS.31. • Statistics held on the country of origin of ALL applicants that have had a temporary visa application from 2004 to 2018 declined due to AS.SO I A5.51 Our response Your request is refused under section 18(f) of the OIA as the information cannot be made available without substantial collation or research. This is because the information is not held in a reportable format in our system. While we can report on the number and nationality of applicants declined on the basis of character, in order to provide statistics on those applicants declined due to concerns that they pose a risk to New Zealand's international reputation, we would need to locate and manually check each application record in our Application Management System. For the period specified in your request, this would entail checking over 10,000 temporary visa applications alone (declined on the basis of character). You have the right to contest the decision to withhold certain information by seeking an investigation and review of that decision by the Ombudsman, whose address for contact purposes is: The Ombudsman PO Box 10152 Wellington 6143
