Many overstayers for few visitors

Press, 21 April 1986, Page 14

Many overstayers for few visitors

PA Wellington Some Pacific groups had “quite massive overstaying” as a proportion of their visitor numbers, said the Minister of Immigration, Mr Burke. Visitors from Fiji, Tonga and Western Samoa, who made up less than 3 per cent of total tourists last year, represented more than 39 per cent of total overstayers, he said. The latest analysis

showed the accumulated number of American and British overstayers in the last 10 years were 1.2 per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively. The comparable figure for Fiji was 7.2 per cent, for Tonga 28.1 per cent and for Western Samoa 33 per cent. One possible reason could be that immigration officials had been more generous and liberal in issuing visitors’ permits to

Pacific people than they had, for example, to people from Hong Kong, India and Singapore, Mr Burke said.

It was also possible that efforts to help Pacific people get to New Zealand as visitors by the sponsorship process in Apia and Nukualofa had made it easier to find overstayers.

The Government would be considering what action it should take "in due course.”