After touting a $7.5b Amazon deal that was confirmed four years ago, what else could the prime minister dust off from the past?
“Prime minister Christopher Luxon has revealed that one of the world’s biggest corporations, Amazon, is investing $7.5 billion in New Zealand,” Garth Bray announced on Herald Now this morning, while the NZ Herald website blared a red breaking news banner sharing the same news.
The big scoop had come while Luxon was “speaking exclusively to Newstalk ZB” on The Mike Hosking Breakfast.
“You’re off to Amazon. Is there a headline out of that today?” Hosking asked the prime minister.
“Mike, this is an incredible story,” Luxon replied. “Amazon, one of the biggest companies in the world, probably worth over a trillion dollars, three and a half times the size of New Zealand – AWS, which is their web service, they do all the cloud storage and data centres and that stuff, they’re investing $7.5bn in New Zealand. That will have an impact on our GDP for sure, creating about a thousand jobs… That’s probably the largest ever publicly announced investment in New Zealand by an international tech firm.”
“Wow. That’s good,” Hosking said. “Seven-and-a-half billion and a thousand jobs, you can’t argue with that.”
“It’s great isn’t it? Isn’t it just a good sign?” Luxon said. This, he implied, was part of the economic turnaround his government had planned. “It’s coming, it’s moving, we’ve just got to follow it through and stick with the plan.”
Despite what viewers may have assumed, this was not a new revelation at all. Amazon hosted a launch event for its new AWS region in Auckland on Tuesday, but its existence was already well known. Amazon announced back in 2021 that it would “invest NZD $7.5 billion in the new AWS Asia Pacific (Auckland) Region, which is estimated to create 1,000 new jobs and contribute NZD $10.8 billion to Aotearoa’s GDP over the next 15 years”.
Labour was quick to criticise, telling TVNZ Luxon was “claiming a $7.5 billion investment in New Zealand as something he’s done”. When questioned by journalists at the event, Luxon insisted he wasn’t being misleading, and “was just drawing attention to the fact that it’s a significant investment”.
As a political strategy, reannouncing things from 2021 might be the win Luxon needs. It comes as company liquidations are up 26%, the Reserve Bank is falling apart like a high school friend group after a breakup, the economy is barely treading water above recession level, and, well, everything is completely rooted.
The government is clinging to the hope that its economic plan – slashing spending, bringing down inflation, and peer pressuring the Reserve Bank into cutting the OCR – will be enough to make house prices go up again before election time.
Luxon just needs something to distract people during this hard time until things turn around. Thankfully, 2021 is ripe for the picking: a plague-ridden nightmare year that we’ve collectively memory-holed. The government could “draw attention” to just about any good news story from back then and sell it as a brand-new reason to celebrate. For example:
Matariki will officially become a public holiday
Everyone loves an extra day off – except miserly hospitality business owners, but they’re already this government’s most loyal voting demographic. Of course, under this government, it will be called Pleiades and The Seven Sisters Day.
The government will allow quarantine-free travel with Australia
Everyone hates quarantine. Now, you will be allowed to go to Australia whenever you like without staying in a musty hotel for two weeks. There’s no way this could go wrong.
New Zealand has struck a major free trade agreement with the United Kingdom, promising zero-tariff exports and a $970 million economic boost
And Luxon gets to borrow Boris Johnson’s toupee.
The Black Caps have won the World Test Championship
Luxon, who claims to be the biggest cricket fan who has ever been prime minister, could go on a victory tour with current Black Caps Ross Taylor, Neil Wagner and Trent Boult.
Lisa Carrington has won three gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics
See, you already forgot that happened in 2021, didn’t you? Luxon could honour her with a damehood or New Zealand’s highest accolade: a Chemist Warehouse endorsement deal.
Taylor Swift is releasing two new albums
Plenty of content for TikTok and great for boosting public morale, especially if you didn’t realise Fearless and Red already existed.
Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are getting a divorce
“What I’d say to you is, divorce is a sad time for everyone, but my best friend who is in business with Kanye says he’s doing OK, and he even jokingly asked for a passport.”
The average New Zealand house price has passed $1m for the first time
Remember when homeowners were convinced they were going to be rich forever? Let’s bring that back.
National Party MPs played cricket during a caucus retreat
This is just an excuse to repost this photo.
Auckland will go into lockdown for an unspecified amount of time
This announcement didn’t work out well for Jacinda Ardern, but it might roll off the tongue a bit better coming from a middle-aged man in a blue suit.
Bennifer are back together
You know what also starts with B? Back-on-track.
Oprah just dropped that Meghan and Harry interview
It was simpler times when Harry and Meghan dominated water cooler chat. Let’s bring that back.
The National Party has chosen a new leader
Also, bring back Tova’s beret.
