New Zealand
Mark Heseltine is an engineer by trade with an interest in democratisation of knowledge. He is about to embark on a PhD in the area of smart cities. Originally from Australia, Mark lived in the UK and Ireland for 12 years, before recently moving to Auckland to enjoy the lifestyle and the burgeoning local open data scene.
New Zealand ranked #5 in the 2014 Open Data Index / Other stories from Asia/Pacific
The Open Data movement in New Zealand continues to mature. Statistics, indicators and geographic information are published by the central government, increasingly in machine-friendly formats. Data is easy to find - even as someone quite new to the country and its Open Data ecosystem, I was able to source and update most of New Zealand’s entries in the Global Open Data Index in a single evening. Key public data sources like http://data.govt.nz and http://data.linz.govt.nz make the job easier.
However, some areas continue to linger, such that our overall rating and position might not have changed substantially over the past 12 months. While some of this may in time be rectified - such as proprietary licensing of the national postcode data set - some may never rate highly on the Index due to structural assumptions that are made by the Index. For example, New Zealand has no national bus or rail networks to speak of. Even though the major cities of Wellington and Auckland have released rich sets of transport data, including real-time public transport timetables, these are not picked up by the Index, and so, perhaps, the situation is actually better than it might look.
Similarly, Christchurch’s Sensing City initiative, based around open sensor data, is world-leading and yet does not contribute to New Zealand’s position on the Index because of its city focus. Around 65% of New Zealanders live in cities, and, as with the rest of the world’s population, that number continues to grow. Having considered the New Zealand experience, I think the Index is a useful guide for national government initiatives, but there is always room for it to evolve to more of an urban focus.
