Australia, N.Z. announce Y2K readiness

Asian Economic News, Dec 20, 1999

SYDNEY, Dec. 15 Kyodo Australia and New Zealand, two of the first developed nations to enter the year 2000, both announced Wednesday they were prepared for intense international attention over how they handle the Y2K computer bug.

Ian Campbell, the Australian parliamentary spokesman on communications, said the federal government was 100% Y2K-compliant after spending 530 million Australian dollars over two and a half years on the problem.

"We are cognizant of the fact that as we go through the date change it will be eight o'clock in the morning (of Dec. 31) in New York...and it will be one o'clock in the afternoon in London, so there'll be a lot of focus (on Australia)," said Campbell at the launch of an Internet site that will broadcast any failures that occur in Australia as a result of the bug.

"We hope that on the night it will basically showcase the job that Australia's done and reinforce Australia's growing reputation as a very reliable nation and trading partner," he said.

Basil Logan, chairman of New Zealand's Y2K Readiness Commission, said in a statement Wednesday that "a huge amount of work has been done to identify and fix Y2K problems and to prepare contingency plans in case things do go wrong."

He said, however, there could be no guarantees regarding the Y2K bug -- a problem caused by old computer programming codes that recognize only two digits in the year -- as it was a unique issue and some problems could surface after Jan. 1, 2000.

World attention will also focus on New Zealand during the date changeover, Logan said.

"New Zealand starts the year 2000 18 hours ahead of Washington D.C., three hours ahead of the United Kingdom and five hours or so before its Asian neighbours. Other countries will be watching closely to see if they can learn anything from what happens in New Zealand once the clock ticks past midnight," he said.