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What is the current level of compliance, if any, within the Minister’s departments, agencies, crown entities and any other bodies that the Minister is responsible for, if any, with NZ Government Web Standards, which require public sector websites to be accessible?

Answered Question 5186 (2026)
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Asked by

Francisco Hernandez

List MP · Green Party

Question

  • What is the current level of compliance, if any, within the Minister’s departments, agencies, crown entities and any other bodies that the Minister is responsible for, if any, with NZ Government Web Standards, which require public sector websites to be accessible?

Answered by

Rt Hon Winston Peters

List MP · NZ First · Minister of Foreign Affairs

Answer

I am advised that the accessibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade's websites is publicly available at digital.govt.nz https://www.digital.govt.nz/standards-and-guidance/nz-government-web-standards/centralised-web-accessibility-checker-cwac/website-scores-cwac. The Asia New Zealand Foundation undertakes regular review of its public website to ensure it aligns with the NZ Government Web Standards. Antarctica New Zealand's main Antarctica New Zealand agency website (https://www.antarcticanz.govt.nz/) and two subsites (https://www.antarcticscienceplatform.org.nz/ and https://www.scottbaseredevelopment.govt.nz/) are compliant with most normative web-design aspects of the Web Accessibility Standard 1.2 requirements, however Antarctica New Zealand have not conducted a comprehensive review to assess our compliance with all parts of the standards. We are mostly compliant with the Web Usability Standard 1.4 though there are two items we could improve on. Our Pictorial website: https://adam.antarcticanz.govt.nz/ hosted by Recollect largely 'supports' or 'partially supports' the web accessibility requirements. Antarctica New Zealand have a further two websites which are accessed by the public but are not considered our main public websites. These have also not been formally assessed against the Govt Web Standards to check for compliance. However, one website EMPEROR (for personal deployment to Antarctica) is hosted by Microsoft Sharepoint, which aligns with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) while the other ANCAT. https://antcat.antarcticanz.govt.nz/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/home is our metadata catalogue for science data hosted by GeoNetwork, and it has been external assessed previously and some accessibility issues were fixed.