At a packed council meeting yesterday, attended by Napier City and Hastings District councillors and a full gallery of leading Hawke's Bay business people, it agreed to contribute $40,000 towards a study into the role of local government in the region.
The councillors want possibilities of inter-regional council collaboration and future partnerships among government sectors investigated, as well as diversification opportunities for the province's economy.
Read more: NZ: Hawke’s Bay: $40,000 pledged for shared services study
“Whether prescribing, dispensing or administering a medicine, the New Zealand Medicines Formulary (NZMF) will be the first reference resource for health professionals wanting information on those medicines,” Mr Dunne said.
“It will be a true one-stop-shop covering clinical information as well classification and subsidy status,” he said.
It is trialling a hi-tech system that takes passport and digital photos in 14 of its Postshops, including its Manners St branch in central Wellington.
The software behind the system could also let NZ Post capture fingerprints and voice samples for identification purposes.
The new system is just being trialed in 14 of the 280 brick and mortar Postshops across the country, but the head of the agency’s services, Mandy Smith, expects that a successful trial could result in another 150 shops receiving the systems with an implementation cost in the low millions of dollars.
Communications and Information Technology Minister Steven Joyce kicked off the Tauranga project yesterday, saying the roll-out will transform the local economy - ultra fast broadband that connects the internet will bring real gains to schools, business, medical facilities and households.
Read more: NZ: Ultra-fast broadband: Who gets it in the Bay?