Forcing government agencies to use open software will save money inside government and provide a competitive advantage for New Zealand businesses, Labour communications and IT spokeswoman Clare Curran says.
Releasing the party's information and communications technology policy, Ms Curran said there were many huge, costly IT projects inside government.
"These often go badly and lead to vast sums of money going offshore.
"Departments are secretive about their technology projects and don't share them, even with other departments."
Labour believed that smarter government meant departments sharing technology, she said.
A Labour government would issue a binding instruction to government agencies to implement a whole-of-government approach to open software.
The instructions would be made under the Public Finance Act 1989.
The policy was aimed a preventing vendors double-dipping, Ms Curran said.
When the Government paid for software to be created, it would be owned by the Government and would be shared within the Government and with the public using an open-source licence.
Ms Curran was keen to stop the secrecy and would investigate having agencies disclosing on their websites the cost and usage of each software product - where doing so did not increase costs.
Agencies would be required to evaluate the costs at a whole-of-government level when deciding whether to develop and freely share software or instead to license it.
All software developed under Crown copyright would be made available to the public on an open-source licence.
Labour would require that new agencies buy only new computer applications that inter-operated using published, open standards.
Government agencies considering new technology purchases of more than $2 million would be first required to evaluate whether existing publicly available technology substantially met their business requirements and what the cost would be of changing their processes to adapt to the existing technology.
Ms Curran said Labour would create a government "app store" to provide a direct route for fledgling New Zealand software developers to get to market.
The app store would be open to local developers wanting to submit software for possible sale to government agencies.
Labour would investigate creating a Ministry of Communications and IT, based in the Ministry of Economic Development, to bring together all policy involving broadcasting, communications and information technology issues.
"Information technology issues often get left to ICT departments, which means that the transformations that ICT can allow for public and private sector growth happen slowly or not at all.
"Increasing the visibility of ICT issues across the Government is an important step that can help drive change faster."
Labour would also appoint a chief technical adviser, who would be responsible for producing technology road maps for New Zealand to oversee New Zealand's national digital architecture.
That would be a strategic not operational position, much like the chief science adviser, Ms Curran said.
The position would sit within the new ministry but report directly to the prime minister.
"One final concern is that, compared with other countries, the consumer voice is largely missing in both the telecommunications and broadcasting markets."
The Australian Consumer Communications Action Network provided a model Labour might consider adopting.
