and the news media asks why? https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/514173/prime-minister-christopher-luxon-looks-for-estonian-inspiration
We / they all have short memories. Back in December 2014 (almost 10 years ago !!) New Zealand was a founding member of the D5 group of nations, along with Israel, South Korea, the UK and of course Estonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Nations
Why did they bother? Successive governments just seemed to have dropped the ball.
Sure we have made some progress, but nobody seemed to get fired up and drive it all forward.