NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Politics

<i>Adam Gifford:</i> Unravelling bureaucracy's tangled web

NZ Herald
28 Jul, 2009 04:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Much useful data is kept from the public's eyes. Photo / Northern Advocate

Much useful data is kept from the public's eyes. Photo / Northern Advocate

Opinion by

Ever wondered what happens to all that information the Government collects? Think you can make better use of it than the bureaucrats? Need some facts to give your mash-up some muscle?

A new initiative by a group of digital activists aims to identify sources of public information, classify who "owns"
it, what licence it is distributed under and if it is free or not. Open government ninja Glen Barnes says the Open Data Catalogue is from open.org.nz's practical manifesto.

"We have paid for that information, and I believe we have a right to it," says Barnes, whose day job involves turning property information into useful applications.

Some information must be kept behind departmental walls to protect individuals' privacy but there is a lot more which can quite safely be let loose.

To make it easier for local bodies and central agencies to let their data out, Barnes is working on an API (application programming interface) for data which is not available in easily digestible formats like Excel or CSV (comma separated values), such as information from websites written in HTML.

He'll take it along for discussion next month at the first open government data bar camp, a user-generated conference to be held at the National Library in Wellington on the weekend of August 29.

"I'm also taking down some work I'm doing on real-time transport information - some of the councils are interested in the concept of how things can happen from that.

"Local bodies often do not have the resources to build websites, but they might make data available for private enterprise to do it."

A typical example is mashing up Google Maps and crime statistics, giving people a visual impression of risk in their town.

Open data scares some agencies and politicians, as evidenced by Education Minister Anne Tolley's contortions when questioned about the league tables her national testing programme will inevitably generate.

It also raises questions about the way government agencies have treated data in the past.

Think of the Companies Office site, which is an excellent and free source of information, but was first designed with the aim of charging fees to offset its development and running costs. It's burdened with some clunky APIs - so for example it's not possible to search which files have been recently updated.

Laurence Millar spent the past five years as government chief information officer trying to streamline the Government's information systems and get better outcomes from its $1.9 billion IT spend.

In his last blog posting as a public servant, Millar wrote of a need to recognise the network effects of opening up government data in a form that means others can access it.

"Economic value is created by businesses building innovative new services using government data.

"Public value is created by enabling a richer and deeper understanding and dialogue among interested individuals about what the data tells us about our lives."

Millar says the new information culture will need government agencies with the inclination to put data out, communities who want to do work with the information and the tools to make it interpretable, such as the graphs available on gapminder.org.

Changes in the way the Government treats its information needs to come from the top, with political leaders who understand technology - a commodity in short supply here. Millar reported to Trevor Mallard, Annette King, David Parker and Tony Ryall.

"It's not a natural domain for politicians. If you look at countries which have made progress with IT in government, they are ones with a leadership which says it is important.

"In the United States, the Obama administration does get it. Northern European countries who put a premium on innovation and engineering get it.

"In Singapore and Korea there are people in power who understand information, network economics and externalities and growing the size of the pie. While we are slugging it out here in terms of domestic competition, the rest of the world is sailing away to different a future."

In his five years trying to encourage whole of government systems "we made good progress but not stellar progress".

The challenge was getting collective action out of a system where each government agency is required to be selfish.

"They have to look at what will be best for my ministry or my department and what we know is the difficult things we are trying to deal with as a country - healthy communities, safer communities, safer children, better business capability - can't be done with one department.

"By splitting things government does into individual components and trying to make each component as efficient as possible, you lose the larger outcomes."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Technology

World

EU unveils rules for powerful AI systems

10 Jul 09:19 PM
Technology

Top 5 takeaways from Samsung's super-slim foldable phone and watch event

10 Jul 05:00 AM
Companies

AI giant Nvidia makes history as first $4 tn company

09 Jul 08:13 PM

Audi offers a sporty spin on city driving with the A3 Sportback and S3 Sportback

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Technology

 EU unveils rules for powerful AI systems

EU unveils rules for powerful AI systems

10 Jul 09:19 PM

EU code helps firms follow its AI Act that includes copyright protections for creators.

Top 5 takeaways from Samsung's super-slim foldable phone and watch event

Top 5 takeaways from Samsung's super-slim foldable phone and watch event

10 Jul 05:00 AM
AI giant Nvidia makes history as first $4 tn company

AI giant Nvidia makes history as first $4 tn company

09 Jul 08:13 PM
X CEO steps down amid controversy over AI chatbot comments

X CEO steps down amid controversy over AI chatbot comments

09 Jul 08:09 PM
Gold demand soars amid global turmoil
sponsored

Gold demand soars amid global turmoil

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP