Government website a big hit one year on

The government web portal, www.govt.nz, tomorrow celebrates its first birthday, having reached two million hits a week in just one year of operation, State Services Trevor Mallard said today.

“The government portal was built to let people quickly and easily get to the right place on government websites to find a huge range of government services and New Zealand information. It is clearly delivering what people are looking for,” Trevor Mallard said.

“It now receives some 2 million hits a week, 25 per cent higher than the previous government portal. The portal records some 80,000 individual visits a week, making it one of the most visited sites in New Zealand.

“The portal is a one stop shop for public services - www.govt.nz now has some 5,500 local and central government services and information resources listed. This government is very committed to building a stronger public service for New Zealanders and www.govt.nz is part of this strategy.

“Every day the portal transfers more than one gigabyte of information. That’s the equivalent of 260,000 floppy disks per year. If you were to stack them up, the pile of floppy disks would be about eight kilometres high.

“The portal also gets some 500-600 e-mail messages a month from people all over the world. The emails range from the quirky (Where can I get Edmund Hillary’s autograph?) to the scams (Nigerian deals offering us US$600 million). Around half the emails are enquiries about New Zealand and its government.

“The top ten most requested search terms on the portal are: Laws (Act, Law, Regulation, Legislation), job vacancies, tax, immigration, education, business, health, Maori, employment, and government.

“More and more people are turning to the Internet for convenient access of government services and information. Government agencies have achieved a great deal over the last few years, bringing their services online and linking them through the portal.

“More government services and information are coming online all the time. Today’s portal is just the beginning. The first year has been about consolidating what has already been achieved. Next year will see the portal moving up to the next level, guiding people through some processes that involve several government agencies. For example, if travelling overseas, information or advice might be needed from several agencies for the passport, for travel advisories or for customs- or immigration-related queries. “That’s where we see the some benefits of electronic government really kicking in,” Trevor Mallard said.

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