Opening Address - 13th Annual Conference of the National Advisory Committee on Computing Qualifications (NACQ) - Te Papa Welli…

Good morning and thank you for the invite today. I was told when I was invited that I could talk about whatever I liked for fifteen minutes. How could a Minister of Communications and IT resist such an invite like that to this audience!

There are several points I would like to make about where I see New Zealand going as we move from a dependence on commodities to a more knowledge based economy.

First of all can I say that competing on wages with the developing world is no future for New Zealand. Our goal is a high skill, high wage economy.

Given the sort of work that you do, the courses you promote, I am sure we share that goal. In effect we're talking about the same thing.

I don't have to tell you that commerce and business are changing at a rate faster than any time in our history. New economies are emerging where information and communication technologies are being developed not just to add value but to create value.

Those countries that embrace this, who have governments who champion it and form partnerships with the private sector to achieve it are the ones that will survive.

New Zealand is at a crossroads. We have traditionally depended on the agricultural economy, and that will continue to be important. Lets face it we can grow things better than the rest of the world.

But we have to get smarter in the way we do things. With no disrespect to Stephen Tindall, we don¡¦t want end up as the Warehouse of the South Pacific. We don¡¦t want to compete on ever decreasing prices.

We need to shift away from a fascination with infotechnology to how we integrate information technology with business and commerce. One of the areas we must focus on is the development of New Zealand's human capital.

Skills
What has become apparent is not only do we need to train people with the technical computing and information skills that are essential to operate in the new economy we also need to keep them. And we need to train our business leaders and entrepreneurs about managing in this new form of business environment.

On that note it was interesting to see on TV that in the US the IT firms are taking students out of university before they qualify as they have the skills companies need just part way through their course.

In New Zealand private and public sector organisations are snapping up people with good practical skills in programming, web design, network and systems engineering. Interestingly enough a report I read recently suggested that more and more business and commerce graduates had included one or two years of IT in their degrees. It is the application of IT in business ¡V e-business - that is in high demand.

At the same time we have students coming away from university with large debts and offers to go overseas to earn large salaries. We have tackled one of these problems by making sure that students don't pay interest on their loans.

I was also interested to see that UNITECH has begun a post-graduate programme aimed at people in full time work. A key feature of the courses is the use of email, discussion board and telephone communications between students and lecturers.

The future will see more and more courses offered over the Internet. This has huge potential for those who have not had access to this type of learning in the past because of geography or money.

Already some internationally recognised institutions are providing courses in this way. This poses threats and opportunities for our New Zealand training institutions.

It means that there is going to have to be a much closer relationship between courses offered and industry.

The ability of polytechnics to work together nationally in developing courses and qualifications which can then be delivered locally to meet local demand will be crucial.

Your work is a good example of this.

The Big Picture
Before the last election we identified the need for leadership and vision to transform New Zealand into a knowledge based economy. It is now a government goal.

The core components of that leadership and vision are the proposed electronic commerce strategy and the electronic commerce summit which will be held in Auckland on 1st and 2nd November.

We want an e-commerce strategy in place in New Zealand by the end of the year. It is essential that such a strategy give us a clear steer as to how we can most effectively compete in the global market.

Countries such as Singapore, Korea and Australia are moving mountains to ensure their businesses are e-commerce capable. We are coming from behind in this and we have set ourselves a fairly strict deadline to get things moving.

Cabinet is expecting a draft e-commerce strategy by August ¡V the strategy will outline ways in which government and business can work together to promote access for New Zealand into the globalised economy.

We're talking to government agencies, the private sector and communities to find out how they think this could best be achieved. What we're after is long term direction but we need some short term gains.

We're looking at things like skilling levels, and access issues, and we need to remove the barriers to SMEs taking up e-commerce. The government can provide leadership in this but for it to work we need business input.

Other items for the work programme include:
„h The development of an e-commerce guide for small to medium enterprises
„h The introduction of an electronic transactions bill
„h A government e procurement programme
„h Computer anti-hacking legislation.

The strategy will be presented to the government's e-commerce leaders summit later in the year. A critical aim of the Summit is to demonstrate that government is serious about ecommerce.

E-Government
If we want to encourage an e-commerce enabled private sector then we have to have an e-government enabled public sector.

Our public sector has some good examples of e-government at work - for instance the work of the Companies Office. In fact in a report I read recently government IT projects are on the par with those in the private sector.

But it's not just about IT projects it's about how IT is making it easier for the public to interact with their government.

First we need a vision.

Our e-government vision is to use information and communications technologies to provide better government services and information electronically, and to build a closer relationship between government and citizens. It is an important part of the future of democracy.

When I talk about e-government I should make it quite clear that I don¡¦t just mean the Beehive, I also mean the public service, the state sector and local government.

We need a service that¡¦s at least as good at service and information delivery as the private sector ¡V if not better.

We want it to be easier for people to have their say and to improve the services they receive. And we want government organisations to work better together to achieve that.

E-government may finally be the Holy Grail that helps us break down the walls between government departments. If we can get them talking to each other and working across their departmental boundaries the implications for improved access and services for New Zealanders would be huge.

It would mean that changing your address on your drivers licence, would then mean your details would be changed with social services, with public health providers, schools and so on.

Or it could mean being able to pay your tax online, check out the latest piece of legislation, register your car or surf the government's website for new policy proposals, using your 3rd generation cell phone, during the half time of a Super-12 game.

We are establishing an e-government unit in the State Services Commission to drive the vision in the public sector.

In the end we hope to have a more transparent system where people can participate in their democracy electronically - that can only be good for New Zealand.

Conclusion
In conclusion the government sees the move towards the knowledge economy as critical. We have plans underway to hasten this along given most reports indicate that we're off the pace.

One of the key issues we face is the development of knowledge and skills in the workforce, because in the end we are competing with the rest of the world.

As you can see graduates of the types of courses you are overseeing will be in high demand in both the public and private sector.

I encourage you in your work and want you to know that to achieve our goal of a high wage, high skills economy we will need graduates from your courses and lots of them.

Thank you.