OCTOBER 29 1999

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hon Maurice Williamson

Minister for Information Technology

NATIONAL CAMPAIGN LAUNCH SIMULCAST ON INTERNET

Information Technology (IT) Minister Maurice Williamson announced today that the National Party Campaign launch at Eden Park on Sunday October 31 would be simulcast on the party web site at 3pm. The site can be found at www.national.org.nz

"The National Party is committed to promoting IT as we enter the Knowledge Economy and believe this is another way we can lead by example and make the event accessible to a large audience."

Mr Williamson said the National-led Government had introduced a number of IT initiatives this year to complement the other steps it had taken since 1990.

"Late last month we announced our E-Government Vision Statement, which outlines our expectations of how Government services will change through to 2005," said Mr Williamson.

"By 2005, we want New Zealanders to be able to electronically register anything with Central Government, make all their payments to Government on-line and consult with the decision makers through their computers.

"We also launched the revamped Government On-Line (NZGO) web site, which is the first point of call for people seeking information on Government agencies. The site received almost 1,400,000 hits last month."

Mr Williamson also launched the E-Commerce web site last month, recognising its importance to New Zealand's emerging Knowledge Economy.

"The purpose of the site is to provide business people and the wider public with easy access to all Government information on E-Commerce. This includes tax, consumer protection, privacy, the legal environment and trust and security issues."

The Government also recognised the importance of IT in this year's Budget.

"We injected another $50 million for IT in schools and more than $400 000 to speed up work in E-Commerce. IT research will also be a prime contender for money allocated from the New Economy Research Fund."

Mr Williamson said the Y2K problem had also been a major IT focus this year and the New Zealand Government had been recognised internationally as a world leader in its preparations.

"The Microsoft Year 2000 Policy Chief Richard Kaplan has said our readiness campaign is a world leader, while a recent United States report on New Zealand said the Government's aggressive remedial efforts meant that very little infrastructure was expected to experience disruptions."

"The Government has been committed to developing and promoting IT and will continue to do so into the new millennium."

WEB SITES

The National Party web site can be found at:

www.national.org.nz

E-Government Vision Statement can be found at:

www.govt.nz/evision
www.ssc.govt.nz/Documents/evision/
www.executive.govt.nz

The E-Commerce web site can be found at:

www.ecommerce.govt.nz

© Scoop Media

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