The digital inclusion conversation in Aotearoa focuses on connectivity and devices. Important, yes. But you can give every whānau in the country a laptop and fibre broadband, and if the platforms they access only operate in English within a Pākehā cultural framework, you haven't achieved inclusion. You've achieved access. They're not the same thing.
What You Need to Know
- Digital inclusion policy in Aotearoa is overwhelmingly focused on infrastructure - connectivity, devices, and basic digital skills. Language and cultural accessibility receive minimal attention.
- Government digital services are predominantly English-first, with te reo Māori and Pacific languages treated as optional additions rather than core requirements.
- Genuine digital inclusion means platforms that reflect the languages, cultural frameworks, and decision-making patterns of the communities using them. This is a design challenge, not a translation task.
- Communities that are digitally "included" on terms that don't reflect their reality experience a form of digital assimilation, not inclusion.
The Infrastructure Fallacy
Aotearoa's digital inclusion strategy is built on a reasonable premise: if people can't access the internet, they can't participate in digital services. So the focus has been on connectivity - broadband rollout, device access programmes, and digital literacy training.
This work matters. But it rests on an assumption that once people are connected, the digital world serves them equally. It doesn't.
74%
of New Zealand government digital services available in English only, with no te reo Māori option
Source: Department of Internal Affairs, Digital Inclusion Blueprint Progress Report, 2022
A Māori whānau in Te Tai Tokerau can have excellent broadband and still find that the government services they need - health, education, housing, social services - operate exclusively in English, with interfaces designed around assumptions about how individuals (not whānau, not hapū) interact with services.
A Samoan family in South Auckland can be fully connected and still encounter health information platforms that don't account for collective health decision-making, extended family obligations, or the role of church and community in wellbeing.
Connection is the beginning, not the destination.
Language as a Barrier to Inclusion
The language dimension of digital inclusion goes beyond whether a website offers a te reo option. It's about whether the entire experience - the navigation, the forms, the help content, the error messages, the assumptions built into every interaction - makes sense in the user's cultural and linguistic context.
Most government digital services are designed in English and, at best, offer translated content. As I've written about before, translation is not bilingual design. A translated form still asks questions in the order that makes sense in English, using categories that reflect English-language concepts, and expecting responses in formats that assume English-language norms.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Consider applying for a government service online. The form asks for your name. First name, middle name, last name. Straightforward in English naming conventions. But what if your name follows Pacific naming conventions, where family name comes first? What if you have a Māori name and an English name, and the system only accepts one? What if the form doesn't accept macrons?
These aren't edge cases. They're the daily experience of Māori and Pacific users interacting with digital services designed without them in mind.
The same pattern appears in health portals, education platforms, and social services. The information architecture assumes a particular cultural framework. Navigation assumes a particular mental model of how information is organised. Help content assumes a particular level of familiarity with institutional language.
45%
of Māori internet users reported finding government websites 'difficult to use' compared to 22% of Pākehā users
Source: InternetNZ, State of the Internet Report, 2022
That gap isn't about digital literacy. Māori users are digitally literate. The platforms aren't culturally literate.
Beyond Translation
Genuine digital inclusion for Māori and Pacific communities requires rethinking how digital services are designed, not just what language they display.
Design for collective use. Many Māori and Pacific families make decisions collectively. Digital services designed for individual users - individual logins, individual records, individual consent - don't reflect this reality. Designing for whānau and family decision-making is a structural challenge, but it's essential for genuine inclusion.
Embed cultural frameworks. A health platform serving Māori communities should reflect Māori health models - Te Whare Tapa Whā, Te Pae Mahutonga - not just translate Western clinical categories. An education platform should understand that learning in many Māori contexts is relational and collective, not individual and linear.
Prioritise te reo and Pacific languages. Not as translations of English content. As native language experiences designed from the ground up. This means hiring designers and developers who think in these languages, not just translators who convert the finished product.
Test with communities, not for them. Usability testing for digital inclusion should happen with Māori and Pacific users from the earliest design stages. Not as a final check, but as an ongoing design partner relationship.
We keep measuring digital inclusion by whether people can get online. We should be measuring whether, once they're online, the digital world recognises who they are.
Hannah Terangi Wynne
Strategic Communications Advisory
The Opportunity
The good news is that Aotearoa is small enough to do this well. We have strong Māori and Pacific digital communities. We have te reo revitalisation creating demand for te reo digital experiences. We have iwi organisations building their own digital platforms. We have Pacific community organisations experimenting with digital health and education tools designed for their communities.
The question is whether government and the technology sector will support this work by designing with communities from the start, or continue the current approach of building for the mainstream and adapting at the edges.
Digital inclusion that doesn't include language and cultural accessibility isn't inclusion. It's a connectivity programme with a missed opportunity attached.