Open, sovereign, built to last: How one local IT shop would like to see NZ’s tech systems
Tuesday, 14 July 2026
One of the country’s largest local, open-source IT shops says the projected $13 billion public sector technology spend over the next five years is an extremely powerful policy lever - and the next Government should be using it to build tech systems that are “open, sovereign and built to last”.
Wellington-based Catalyst IT, which was established in 1997 and has since grown to a 300-person strong business designing, building, and maintaining digital systems for public and private sector organisations, including many top UK universities like Cambridge and University College London, has today issued an “election manifesto” in which it makes the plea for better use of public funds on IT.
The plea mirrors themes contained in a report by New Zealand's Public Service Commissioner, Sir Brian Roche, earlier this month, which reviewed digital delivery across government. In his review, Roche said Government tech projects were rife with duplication, poor coordination and limited central oversight, and needed a reset.
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Roche also said the value and performance of tech spending was sub-par. Some $42 million a year is being spent on the new Government Chief Digital Officer and the Government Digital Delivery Agency, established to lead the public sector's digital transformation.
Catalyst’s manifesto said the Public Service Commission had “delivered a verdict: Government IT is over budget, under-delivered, and locked into systems it doesn’t control.
“We have a chance to build something the country can be proud of: Open, sovereign, built to last.”
Managing director and co-founder Don Christie told The Post he was moved to issue the manifesto to take advantage of election time.
Other countries, like Denmark, France and the UK took a national strategic approach to their official tech systems, treating them as a “pressing issue and something that they really need to do to stimulate local innovation to ensure that they have economic independence and self-determination.”
In its document, Catalyst calls for the Government to set down three priorities for new tech it buys - first, that it must be open-source, or built with a code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance, so it does not become obsolete.
The opposite is closed source (proprietary) code, used by the world’s global tech behemoths in products sold around the world to lock buyers into certain systems to the exclusion of others.
A second priority is sovereign data policy - with “critical government, and sensitive citizen, data … hosted and managed under sovereign control in New Zealand”.
Finally, it requests “value-first procurement settings” - with money spent on local providers rather than the big multinationals.
The suggestions put forward include expanding the Economic Benefit Test, which currently says agencies must seek economic benefits to New Zealand in procurements above the value thresholds of $100,000 for goods, services and refurbishment works, and $9 million for new construction works. Below this threshold, agencies are expected to award procurements to New Zealand businesses “that are capable and have capacity to deliver the contract”.
How could the Economic Benefit Test be expanded?
For one thing, Christie said, $100,000 was “not a lot of money” in the context of many projects. For another, he said, the rule was applied “very patchily”.
“Every time I see the words ‘digital transformation’, I know there will be tens of millions of dollars down the drain; that that the projects will be made so big that only some big overseas company can do it, and that 10 years later will be out of date. [Instead], those sort of projects should … be broken down into small deliverable components.”
“And not only that, if we as taxpayers are paying for specific needs to be met, the framework should be that the software is open source and it can be reused without any extra payments being made.”
Christie said he was encouraged by the new Government Digital Delivery Agency’s talk of “open standards” and “reuse”, but what was needed was a “very clear and strong political direction and support” to be successful.
Without it, projects would be “constantly undermined by self-interest and the access and lobbying power that some of these overseas companies have, they can come in and just smother us”.
Could a sceptic say this manifesto - and the push for more local, open-sourced IT systems building and maintenance - just be a push for more business for the likes of Catalyst and other big locals including Datacom, Silverstripe and BTG among others?
“Of course,” he said.
“It's New Zealand companies that are providing jobs for our children. It's New Zealand companies that are providing the tax payments … that build our hospitals and our schools. It's not overseas companies doing that for us. Quite the opposite.”