File No. DOIA 2021-1511
21 April 2021
Christopher Auld
[FYI request #14683 email]
Dear Christopher Auld
Thank you for your email on 14 February 2021 to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
(the Ministry) requesting the following under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act):
I request the following information for the 6 month period 1 August 2020 to 1 February 2020;
1. The number of arrivals into MIQ facilities grouped by country of original departure to New
Zealand.
2. The number of persons testing positive for COVID-19 during their stay in an MIQ facility
grouped by their country of original departure to New Zealand.
I would appreciate receiving this information in a form that allows these values to be
determined on a week-by-week basis. However, I am happy to receive that data as such
temporal granularity, up to and including single per-country values for the whole 6 month
period, as may be required to protect the privacy of natural persons under s9 of the Act.
Part two of your request was transferred to the Ministry of Health on 23 February 2021.
In respect of the first part of your request, the Managed Isolation Allocation System (MIAS), introduced
on 5 October 2020, now has a mandatory field called ‘country of departure’, implemented on
18 November 2020. The majority of returnees who have secured their space prior to this date would not
have been required to provide this data. Therefore, there are over 40,000 blank fields in this category in
our database.
As MIAS was introduced on 5 October 2020, we have provided the six month date range for this request
from 5 October 2020 – 5 April 2021.
As further context, while the last port of embarkation is now provided by Immigration New Zealand, this
is often not always where a traveller’s journey commenced. Many returnees take one or more flights, or
other forms of transport, to reach an airport where they then catch their flight to New Zealand. As such,
any information that the Ministry holds about ‘country of departure’ is incomplete and inconclusive
data.
Below is the list of top 20 countries by volume of people that have secured a voucher in the MIAS
booking system between the period 5 October 2020 – 5 April 2021. In total, there were 70,325 people
who booked a voucher for MIQ and intended to travel to New Zealand. However, we cannot confirm if
all persons who secured a voucher, arrived and entered an MIQ facility. Therefore, we are unable to
account for no-shows in the available data.
Country of Departure
Count of Passport Numbers
(blank)
40,571
Australia
9,574
UK
3,775
USA
2,279
India
2,252
China
1,662
New Zealand
619
Canada
601
Philippines
555
Western Samoa
527
South Africa
477
Hong Kong
463
Argentina
461
Singapore
457
Germany
392
Korea
382
Japan
360
Fiji
342
Malaysia
277
Netherlands
244
Ireland
217
The above data comes, but is not limited to, the following caveats:
1. Country of departure information is entered by the registrant in MIAS at the time of booking.
This information is not validated against any other source, and is therefore dependant on the
user’s interpretation and accuracy of input.
2. This data may contain duplicates. While every effort has been made to remove duplicates, some
may not have been identified.
3. A proportion of voucher holders may not travel to New Zealand as indicated on their voucher
arrival date.
4. Travellers who do not cancel their vouchers, may be included in this count.
5. A small proportion of voucher holders may not necessarily enter into MIQ facilities due to
exemptions
6. This data may be subject to change.
To provide the remainder of ‘Countries of Departure’ data would involve considerable staffing
resources, as the Ministry does not currently hold the data in the format you have requested. As such, I
am refusing your request for information for all arrivals under section 18(f) of the Act, as the
information requested cannot be made available without substantial collation or research.
The Ministry does regularly publish data on MIQ occupancy, including the total number of people that
have gone through MIQ. This information can be found at the following website:
www.mbie.govt.nz/business-and-employment/economic-development/covid-19-data-
resources/managed-isolation-and-quarantine-data/.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision. Information
about how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802
602.
Yours sincerely
Christina Sophocleous-Jones
General Manager National Operations Services
Managed Isolation & Quarantine
