Media Release

17 June 2009

People from Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati and Tuvalu who have submitted their application for this year’s ballots under the Samoan Quota (SQ) or Pacific Access Category (PAC) scheme will have one more week to wait until the ballots are drawn.

The PAC and SQ ballots draw will take place on Wednesday 24 June 2009 (New Zealand time) at 10am. (Samoa on 23 June at 11am).

The New Zealand Immigration Service will only contact the successful ballottees and they will have until Friday 8 January 2010 to lodge their applications for New Zealand residency.

The Director of the Department’s Pacific Division, Ross Grigg, says the pushing of the buttons to generate the list certainly gives a lot of hope to many. “We ensure the right systems are in place and we continue to work closely as a team to make sure that this works smoothly. The team has worked well together to ensure all ballottees details are in the computer system and all registrants meet the quota registration requirements,” Mr Grigg says. “The computer will randomly select registration numbers from the pool and stops when enough registrations have been selected to fill the quota places for each country.”

The PAC and SQ successful registration numbers will be published and displayed at Pacific Branches offshore.  For those onshore, they can contact the Immigration Contact Centre on 0508-55-88-55 to find out if their application is successful.  Some Pacific newspapers will publish the successful PAC and SQ registration numbers.

The Samoan Quota allows up to 1,100 citizens of Samoa selected by ballot, to be granted residence in New Zealand each year. The Pacific Access Category allows up to 250 citizens of Tonga and up to 75 citizens each from Kiribati and Tuvalu selected by ballot to be granted residence in New Zealand every year.

ENDS.