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Interoperability, Trust, and the Next Phase of Digital Government in Aotearoa

19 March 20268 min read

Reflections prompted by the closing questions from the Digitising Government conference agenda

I came across the closing questions posted as part of the Digitising Government conference agenda recently, and they felt like a useful prompt for reflecting on where digital government in Aotearoa could head over the next five years.

There is no shortage of discussion right now about AI, automation, shared platforms, data, modernisation, and cost reduction. All of those matter.

But if I step back from the individual technologies and programmes, the biggest opportunity still feels broader than any one toolset.

It is our ability to build a more connected digital ecosystem.

There is one theme I keep coming back to: interoperability.

Not as the only answer. Not as a silver bullet. But as one of the more practical ways to reduce fragmentation across government systems and create better foundations for more seamless public services.

That is not a new idea in the New Zealand context, and it is no longer just an architectural side note. It is increasingly visible in the current Digital Target State, the direction around Digital Public Infrastructure, and the requirement for agencies to be open and interoperable by design. The question now is whether agencies are actually set up to follow that through.

We have been near this idea before

To be fair on past visionaries this is not really a new ambition.

New Zealand has had earlier pushes toward shared capability, common platforms, joined-up services, and reducing duplication across government. I have seen some of that up close through work connected to initiatives like the Common Web Platform, Life Events, and govt.nz.

The language changes over time, and the structures around it change too, but the underlying idea has been familiar for years: if public services rely on digital systems, then those systems need to work together better than they often do today.

Why interoperability matters for digital government

If government organisations are going to keep operating across a mix of legacy systems, commercial products, shared services, and bespoke platforms, then interoperability starts to look less like a nice-to-have and more like part of the basic plumbing.

Done well, interoperability can help organisations exchange information more intentionally, reduce dependency on manual workarounds, and create better continuity across services.

That does not automatically mean every system should be replaced. In many cases, it probably means the opposite.

A more realistic path is often to accept that mixed environments will continue to exist, then focus on how they can interoperate safely, consistently, and transparently. That is where well-governed APIs, common data models, clear integration patterns, and stronger design discipline can all play an important role.

Interoperability is not only a technical issue. It also shapes whether the public can trust the systems behind these services.

As agencies push forward with AI, data, and automation, public trust will depend less on abstract promises of innovation and more on whether the systems underneath are understandable, governable, and behaving in ways that are visible and accountable.

Interoperability is part of that. So is data quality. So is clear stewardship. So is knowing who owns what, where decisions sit, and how failure is handled when things do not work as intended.

Government can learn from open digital communities

I also think there is something worth learning from digital communities outside government, especially open source communities.

The strongest open ecosystems are not built only on standards or code. They are built around shared needs, contribution, stewardship, practical feedback loops, and communities that keep improving things over time.

That feels relevant here.

If we want more durable digital public infrastructure, we need more than policy and procurement settings. We need stronger communities of practice, clearer education around open approaches, and more shared ownership of the patterns, models, and interfaces that make digital services function across organisational boundaries.

Whether that sits within the proposed Digital Delivery Agency or another model, what matters is having a function that can help agencies apply that direction well by supporting common standards, sharing implementation guidance, building capability across government, and helping organisations learn what good interoperable service design looks like.

That matters because the current direction is already more explicit than it once was. The question is less whether interoperability, reuse, and joined-up delivery should matter, and more whether government has the capability, governance, and follow-through to apply those expectations consistently across a messy mix of systems.

That is not an argument against commercial products, nor a claim that open source is always the answer.

It is an argument for learning from ecosystems that have had to solve coordination and stewardship in the open, and building more of that capability into government itself.

Why open data models matter

One area where this becomes practical is data.

Where there are common open data models already proving useful across science, research, and public data environments, I think there is value in taking those more seriously as part of the shared foundation for public services.

Not because standardisation is glamorous, but because it reduces avoidable ambiguity. It makes integration easier. It improves data portability. And it creates better conditions for reuse.

Even where government continues to rely on proprietary systems, that does not have to mean accepting closed data flows as inevitable.

If we cannot always reduce reliance on proprietary ecosystems, then a sensible next step is to ask how secure open interoperability layers and clearer portability expectations can sit across them in practice. That is one way to retain more flexibility, visibility, and freedom of movement over time.

Without something like that, there is a risk that digital transformation simply becomes a new form of lock-in.

None of this is especially new internationally. Other governments have already shown the value of shared standards, common digital infrastructure, and better governed data exchange. In New Zealand, many of these ideas are now visible in the Target State and associated principles as well. The challenge is less inventing a new idea than applying it consistently, with enough implementation support behind it.

The barriers are not only technical

When people talk about the barriers to progress, they often separate them into technology, leadership, funding, culture, or collaboration.

In reality, they interact.

Technology can absolutely be a barrier. So can fragmented architectures and poor integration practices. But many of the deeper issues are organisational: fragmented ownership, inconsistent incentives, procurement decisions that optimise for local outcomes over system-wide ones, uneven application of shared standards, weak cross-government stewardship, and not enough investment in the connective tissue.

That is often where good intent starts to thin out.

Because shared infrastructure sounds sensible in principle, but it requires trade-offs in practice. It requires patience. It requires governance that holds. It requires organisations to think beyond their own immediate delivery pressures. And it requires political and administrative support that survives long enough for the benefits to compound.

What success could look like in five years

If we came back to these questions in five years’ time, I do not think success would look like a long list of isolated digital projects.

I think it would look more like a genuinely connected ecosystem, with a few tangible shifts underneath it.

Services designed more coherently around people’s needs, with fewer points where people are forced to navigate organisational boundaries that government itself should be managing better.

Systems that exchange information safely and intentionally, using clearer standards, better API design, and stronger governance over how data is shared, reused, and understood.

More reusable shared infrastructure, not just in the form of platforms, but also patterns, components, guidance, and integration models that agencies can adopt without each starting from scratch.

Greater trust in how AI, data, and automation are being applied, supported by clearer accountability, better visibility into decision-making, and stronger confidence in the quality and stewardship of the underlying systems.

Stronger local communities helping shape the standards, models, and platforms underneath it all, so that digital government is informed not only by vendors and internal teams, but by practitioners, domain experts, and the wider public interest.

And importantly, a stronger sense that digital government is not just about modernising individual services, but about improving the foundations that make good services possible in the first place.

If I had a magic wand, some of this would become more concrete through clearer common data models in priority domains, shared API and integration guidance that teams are expected to build from, stronger reuse of common capabilities, and a central function focused not just on policy, but on helping agencies apply these things well.

None of that feels unreachable. The harder part is sustained coordination, stewardship, and follow-through.

A practical place to focus

I do not think interoperability is the whole answer.

But I do think it is one of the more practical and necessary parts of the conversation.

Not because it is new. In many ways it is not.

But because it sits at the intersection of service design, trust, architecture, data, and long-term stewardship. It is one of the places where technical choices and public outcomes meet most clearly.

If progress over the next few years is going to be real, rather than just well-intentioned, I suspect it will need to show up in a few concrete ways: better reuse of common patterns, more consistent approaches to integration, clearer expectations for data portability, and stronger support for agencies trying to work beyond the boundaries of their own systems.

One area I would hope the emerging central digital leadership function looks at closely is how a more deliberate interoperability approach could support the next phase of digital government in Aotearoa.

Not as a single-platform answer, but as a practical way to support common standards, shared API patterns, safer information exchange, and more portable service design across a mixed environment.

It is also the kind of work I would be genuinely interested in contributing to, because it sits where public outcomes, technical design, and delivery choices actually collide.

That feels to me worth paying attention to. Especially if the goal is not just to digitise existing complexity, but to build a digital public environment that is more coherent, resilient, and useful to the people who rely on it.

If you are working in this space, I would be interested in where you think the interoperability gaps still bite hardest.

References and further reading