17 November 2022
Saska Hayes
[email address]
File No: DOIA 2223-0323
DOIA 2223-0389
Dear Saska Hayes
Thank you for your emails of 17 August 2022, 26 August 2022, and 5 September 2022 to the Ministry of
Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), requesting under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act),
the following information:
[17 August 2022]
‘-
Any documents, correspondence or advisory documents regarding the review of the composition of the
New Zealand (refugee) Quota Programme from 2017 onwards.
- Any documents, correspondence and advisory that assisted in identifying the Asia-Pacific region as an
area of interest.
- Any documents, correspondence and advisory documents that led to the increase of the New Zealand
(refugee) Quota Programme allocation for the Middle-East and African regions being increased from 14%
to 15%.
- Any documents, correspondence and advisory documents used to justify the current composition of New
Zealand's Refugee Quota Programme.
- Any documents, correspondence and advisory documents that were used make the recommendations
provided in the Hon Iain Lees-Galloway report "Three year Refugee Quota Programme 2019/20 to
2021/22.’
[26 August 2022]
‘A copy of the Cabinet Decision related to the cabinet paper "Three year Refugee Quota Programme
2019/20 to 2021/22" - Any documents or correspondence related to the Cabinet Decision including any
email correspondence.’
[5 September 2022]
‘Any documents, correspondence and advisory documents that were used make the recommendations
provided in the cabinet decision released on 5 August 2022 named “Resettling Afghan evacuees –
settlement support, COVID-19 and considering options to extend our response (Ministry of Business
Innovation & Employment, August 2022) – Office of Honourable Michael Wood.’
Our response
Firstly, I would like to apologise for the delay in providing you with this response. Given the broad scope of
your original and extended request it has not been possible to provide you with all correspondence falling
within the scope of your request (this is outlined further below). We have however sought to provide you
with al substantive papers within the scope of your original and extended request, which has required
consultation with external agencies which, along with workload pressures, has resulted in additional delay.
We note that a number of documents within the scope of your request are already publicly available online,
and are outlined below. We are refusing your request for these documents under section 18(d) of the Act.
Request of 17 August 2022
Briefing: Increasing New Zealand's contribution to global humanitarian efforts (mbie.govt.nz)
options-for-the-three-year-refugee-quota-programme-2019-20-2021-22 (1).pdf
Request of 26 August 2022
Three year Refugee Quota Programme (2019/20 to 2021/22) (mbie.govt.nz).
Request of 5 September 2022
Managing Emergency Allocations for Afghan evacuees (mbie.govt.nz)
Accommodating further evacuees from Afghanistan in MIQ (mbie.govt.nz)
MIQ fees for returnees and evacuees from Afghanistan (mbie.govt.nz)
Requests of 17 and 26 August 2022
We note that questions 2-5 of your original request, and your additional request of 26 August 2022, are a
subset of question 1. We have agreed to grant that aspect of your request, which seeks documents and
advisory documents, and these are provided in the attached bundle titled “Tranche 1”.
We wrote to you on 26 August 2022 to request whether you would be willing to clarify the scope of the
“correspondence” sought in your requests of 17 and 26 August 2022 due to the amount of information that
would need to be searched to respond to your request. On 5 September 2022, you responded with an
additional request, but did not clarify the scope of the earlier requests.
We subsequently undertook multiple records searches using key terms within the scope of your request to
identify emails held by MBIE that may be within the scope of the request for relevant correspondence
within the categories you have requested. That search identified at least 132,613 emails that would need
to be searched in order to collate all of the information requested. We are accordingly refusing the
correspondence aspect of your request under section 18(f) on the basis that the information sought cannot
be provided without substantial col ation.
We would consider any further OIA requests that might seek a more refined set of correspondence, which
would be more manageable to collate.
Request of 5 September
We have agreed to grant the aspect of your request of this date as it relates to documents and advisory
documents and these are provided in the attached bundle titled “Tranche 2” .
As above, we undertook further multiple records searches using key terms relating to this aspect of your
request to identify emails held by MBIE, which may be within the scope of the request for relevant
correspondence. That search identified at least 5,179 emails that would need to be searched to collate all
of the information requested.
We are accordingly refusing the aspect of this request seeking correspondence under section 18(f) on the
basis that the information cannot be provided without substantial collation.
As above, we would consider any further OIA requests that might seek a more refined set of
correspondence, which would be more manageable to collate.
Redactions
Please note that some of the information within the documents provided to you in response to your
requests of 17 August, 26 August and 5 September 2022 has been withheld under section 18(a) of the Act
on the basis that there is good reason to withhold the information under the fol owing sections:
• Section 6(a) – where the particular information made available would be likely to prejudice the
international relations of the Government of New Zealand
• Section 6(b)(ii) – where the particular information made available would prejudice the entrusting
of information to the Government of New Zealand on a basis of confidence by any international
organisation
• Section 9(2)(a)- to protect the privacy of natural persons. Where information has been withheld on
this ground we have determined that there is no public interest in disclosure which outweighs the
public interest in protecting the privacy interests of these individuals.
• Section 9(2)(g)(i) - information has been withheld on the basis that it is necessary to withhold it to
maintain the effective conduct of affairs through free and frank expression of opinions by or
between or to Ministers of the Crown or employees of any public service agency in the course of
their duty. Where information has been withheld on this ground, we have determined that any
public interest in disclosure is more than met by the information which is being disclosed, and any
public interest in disclosure of the remaining material is outweighed by the public interest in
maintaining the flow of free and frank opinions of the nature contained in this material, and also
more generally.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of the Ministry’s response to
your request, in accordance with section 28(3) of the Act. Information about how to make a complaint is
available a
t www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
If you wish to discuss any aspect of your request or this response, please contact
[email address]
Yours sincerely
Greig Young
Acting General Manager, Refugee and Migrant Services
Immigration New Zealand