Election to decide digital future

It’s time for the government to step up to ensure our country’s tech success, writes

digital equality, which is a cornerstone of Labour’s technology policy pitch. Curran said that Labour wants to target technology projects – in particular, ultra-fibre broadband – to maraes, state and community housing, and towns.

Digital equality is also being championed by the 20/20 Trust, another charitable trust doing sterling work. Its Manifesto for Digital Inclusion claims there are 120,000 children ‘‘in year 4 and above without access to the internet at home’’. According to 20/20 Trust chairman, Laurence Millar, ‘‘few government-funded programmes specifically address New Zealand’s digital divide’’.

Millar was at the Digital Future Panel, trying to get political parties to support the manifesto.

While Labour and the Greens said they will get behind digital inclusion, National’s Hudson isn’t rushing to take action. He suggested his party is still looking for an ‘‘evidence-based understanding of exactly what will work’’.

That’s a cop-out. All parties should be taking action now, to ensure digital technology is available to all New Zealanders.

This is particularly important given the continuing shift to online services and apps.

The government recently announced that ‘‘80 per cent of the transactions for the 20 most common public services’’ will be completed digitally by 2021.

Enabling online transactions for public services is a good initiative, but only if it’s accessible to everyone. That’s why we can’t continue to rely on charitable trusts to implement our digital future. It’s time for the government to step up too.

Richard MacManus (@ricmac) founded tech blog ReadWriteWeb in 2003 and has since become an internationally recognised commentator on what’s next in technology and what it means for society.