The New Zealand government has a strategy in place to establish an e-government infrastructure that is
intended to allow citizens and government agencies to interact electronically. This paper reports the results of a
longitudinal study designed to track the development of e-local government initiatives in New Zealand since 2000.
Identical surveys conducted four years apart show heightened recognition by policy makers of sixteen key policy issues
judged vital for e-government success; as well as increasing sophistication of local authority websites. The results also
indicate that, while the majority of NZ e-government websites appear to have been created to provide information to
citizens, there remain many opportunities to use such a vehicle strategically. It is anticipated these results will be of
interest both to local and central government policy makers, and to other e-government researchers.
