Background on the Digital Strategy

New Zealanders have enthusiastically embraced new technologies such as the Internet, mobile phones and other ICT. Using these technologies, we can do some things today that were impossible a decade ago.

In recognition of technological change and its beneficial effect on the economy and society, the government developed a number of ICT-related strategies and initiatives. The Digital Strategy builds on much of the work that has been done before, by bringing our thinking and activity together to create a clear direction of where we want to be.

This includes past work in the following areas:

• E-Commerce Strategy  - building business capability,
• E-government Strategy - transforming government and its services using ICT as a driver,
• Education ICT Strategy - integrating ICT more fully into curriculum practice and education administration,
• The Wave Report - defining the e-health infrastructure required to provide integrated health care,
• Connecting Communities Strategy [PDF 240kb] - addressing social inclusion and community development,
• National Library Digital Strategy - managing preservation of digital content, digitising the heritage collection to make it more accessible,
• Project PROBE - infrastructure delivering broadband to schools and their surrounding communities,
• Legislative Reform, for example, telecommunications and e-transactions legislation - improving competition and innovation in telecommunications, and enabling electronic methods to be used to meet legal requirements.

In addition, ICT forms part of the Government's current Economic Transformation program. ICT is an enabler of innovation and productivity gains across the economy, and will play a critical role to the future development of New Zealand's economy. 

The first major stage in this work that addressed the overall role of government was the ICT Taskforce report in June 2003, set up to look at the growth potential of the ICT sector and the role of ICT in the New Zealand economy. The Taskforce provided a positive assessment of the sector's future and concluded that, given the right conditions, ICT products and services could contribute significantly to New Zealand's future growth.

The second major stage is the development and implementation of this Digital Strategy. The Digital Strategy is a unifying framework that can be updated in light of the latest technology trends, to guide ICT-related policies and initiatives.

The government released the draft Digital Strategy in June 2004 for public feedback and discussion. The draft Strategy received widespread interest from all sectors of New Zealand society. Nearly 200 written submissions were received. The feedback strongly supported the Strategy and told us we are heading in the right direction. 

The first Digital Strategy was released in May 2005.

In 2007 a Report on Progress on the Digital Strategy was published, and the Digital Future Summit was held.  This was the beginning of the process of developing Digital Strategy 2.0.