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The Arab media have also taken a very strong interest in these events and one such reporter was pleased to inform me that I was "big news" in the Middle East.

Many of the reports appear to have painted the NZ Government in a far from flattering light -- particularly on the matter of the advice I received from Trade & Industry in respect to exporting to Iran. They are also surprised that, as yet, that advice to me has not been rescinded and I would still apparently be free to engage in such export transactions.

If the government's objective was to avoid the embarrassment of having a private citizen demonstrate a home-built cruise missile then I fear that the cure may be worse than the complaint.

But now let's resume normal transmission...

It seems that although New Zealand ranks very poorly in respect to the price we must pay for broadband when compared to other nations, we are right up their with the best when it comes to actually getting online and using the Net.

RIght now, Trevor Mallard's office is waxing lyrical over the results of an international study that places NZ in number-one position in terms of the percentage of population who have actually accessed the Net in a 30 day period.

Mallard's crew are particularly enchanted with the fact that 45% of those surveyed had also used an online government service during that period.

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And indeed, I must give them full marks for making a good number of very useful government resources available to Net users -- well done.

However, I'm not so sure they can take credit for NZ's number-one position as a leader in Internet use.

Kiwis are just naturally early-adopters. We tend to latch on to new technology very easily and are not afraid to embrace that which others might consider to be risky or a little scary. One only has to look at just how quickly EFTPOS has replaced cash and cheques to realise this.

A more worrying aspect of this report however, is the appearance of a quite significant "digital divide".

It seems that those households with an income of $50K or over are nearly twice as likely to use the Net to access government services than those earning just $30K or less.

This is indeed unfortunate, as it is probably the lower-income users who have more to gain from e-Government services than anyone.

Something equally enlightening is that despite our seemingly high internet up-take and the work that government has done to get its services online, our use of those services (as a percentage of total net users) is below average. This may have something to do with the fact that a whopping 59% of those surveyed felt that it was unsafe to remit personal details to government departments using the Net.

Despite fears over security, it seems that we're also very quick to use online banking services. Of course anyone who has actually tried get any service from their bank by standing in the queue that leads to the single teller on duty at lunchtime will know that the banks seem to have left us little option in this matter.

Now I wonder, given just how well we have scored on the net-usage statistics, just how much better off we'd be as a nation if the vast majority of Kiwis weren't constrained by the limitations of a dial-up or low-speed DSL connection?

Remember "good enough is the enemy of better" -- and although we're doing very well, that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to do the very best we can.

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