MEDIA RELEASE
5 December 2005
Ministry launches new website
The Ministry of Women’s Affairs today formally launched a new-look website with many new feaures and resources.
The site – www.mwa.govt.nz – has been built with assistance from the State Services Commission (SSC) and is the first
site by another government agency to use the open source code and content management system SSC is making freely
available to the whole state sector.
“We were delighted to be the first government agency to use the Government Web Guidelines compliant version of the
content management system Plone which SSC has had developed by 3months.com,” said Ministry Chief Executive Shenagh
Gleisner. “As a small government policy agency it was great to have the support of the Commission and to contribute to
something which should be of great benefit to other public sector organisations.”
The site contains much new content, including features that users of the previous Ministry site said would be useful.
“The top two items requested were ‘information on women in New Zealand’ and ‘research / statistics on women in New
Zealand’,” said Shenagh. “When we were building the new site, we tried to reflect that interest with a new Women in New
Zealand section. It includes a great timeline which gives an overview of the history of women in New Zealand, and brief
information presented under the headings people tend to ask for - such as Pacific women, or women with disabilities.
“For statistical information on all women in New Zealand we link to the excellent and up-to-date information on women on
the Statistics New Zealand site and other government sites. This is part of trying to take a whole-of-government
approach – if another part of government has produced the information and already has it available on the web, we link
to it rather than recreate it on our site.”
Shenagh also thanked stakeholders such as the National Council of Women, PACIFICA, the Māori Women’s Welfare League and
Rural Women New Zealand that had helped with user feedback.
ENDS