The Figjam Prime Minister
The Figjam Prime Minister
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12:20 pm, September 4th, 2025 - 21 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, spin, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up -
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It appears that Christopher Luxon cannot buy a trick right now.
Yesterday he chose to try and divert attention from the complete lack of job creation his Government has driven by celebrating a new announcement by an American Corporate that it was investing $7.5 billion in Aotearoa and creating 1,000 jobs.
When your Government creates nothing it is important that when something happens job creation wise you claim credit for it.
Even if, and this is a rather big if, the announcement had already been made in September 2021 when Jacinda Ardern was Prime Minister.
Unless Amazon is intending to have two different investments of $7.5 billion in the country. Which seems unlikely.
Luxon’s problem is that his mouth runs away on him. His level of hype is commensurate to that of a deoderant sales rep. And he is prepared to go right to the edge of what is accurate and honest.
Yesterday he broke an embargo by announcing Amazon’s investment before the formal announcement was made. The claim itself was pretty rubbery. Amazon claimed that it would be announcing “the largest publicly disclosed global technology investment in New Zealand’s history”.
Which does not appear to be true because it had already been announced. It would have been more accurate to state that it was the “equal largest” investment given its earlier announcement.
Things descended into farce.
The embargo was due to lift at 10 am.
But at 7:13 am Luxon blabbed the details to Mike Hosking live on air.
Lloyd Burr at Stuff provides the details:
“This is an incredible story, right,” Luxon begins. “Amazon – one of the biggest companies in the world, probably worth over a trillion dollars which is 3.5 times the size of New Zealand – AWS which does web services, cloud storage and data centres and all of that stuff, they’re investing $7.5b in New Zealand.
“That will have an impact on our GDP for sure, create up to 1000 jobs, and almost an $11b boost to our GDP,” he says.
Why it should be an incredible story now and not an incredible story in 2021 is not immediately discernible.
Labour tersely provided this response to the claim:
“Christopher Luxon is claiming a major international business investment secured under Labour as his own. In an embarrassing faux pas, Christopher Luxon is claiming a $7.5b investment in New Zealand as something he’s done, when in reality he’s had very little to do with it.”
There was also some incredibility about the way that Amazon framed the news. The original 2021 proposal was for AWS to construct new premises in the country. This had morphed over time to it installing new racks into other companies’ data centres and claiming this was a big thing.
About its spin Johnathan Milne at Newsroom said this:
This is one of the clumsiest and most embarrassing attempts to evade answering a question I’ve seen from any business leader, for a long time.
Most of the public will be indifferent. But the more sophisticated part of the media have picked up on the topic and have written about Luxon in pretty derogatory terms. Check out this article by Dita De Boni, or this by Joel McManus, or this by Russell Palmer among others.
Basically this was a reissue of a previous announcement that effectively was a back track that was hyped by the Prime Minister in search of rhetoric suggesting he was doing something about employment and living conditions.
And if you need to know about the Figjam reference as noted by Burr it is short for “F*** I’m good just ask me”.
These guys still don't get that by deliberately destroying the heavy and residential construction sectors in 2023-4 (both via austerity budget cuts and collusion with the RBNZ), they accelerated the decline in most other parts of our economy outside agriculture.
We are very predictably cyclic in lead economy declines.
We are still to feel the worst impact of the economic impact of this government.
Nothing is coming to save them. Certainly not bullshit 'announcements'.
Does Shane Jones understand the conflict between cheap power for business that employs workers and the amount of power required for data centres?
They will get their power off the grid.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/571948/amazon-and-the-case-of-the-missing-new-zealand-data-centres
Great opportunity for the media to.pursue the deal maker on whats the power consumption of the DC and will they pay market rates.
Play him as hes playing NZ because the only way I can see Amazon being interested here is a fn amazing deal on the power which would be locked in of course.
Tiwai Point 2.0
tc, 100% That is what I thought. What did you give them to get that bloody pantomime?
The back slapping and the carry on!!!
The very reason they are here.
Negotiating super cheap power like some other foreign company we know down south.
That’s where they got the idea from to set up here.
Does New Zealand have cheap power compared to the US?
NZ has one of the most benign geopolitical contexts in the world. English speaking, open economy, trained locals (including new NZers) with highly trained specialists about to be waved in. Many rich Americans – decision makers in the Amazon deal – have a fantasy view of us: Hobbiton with a neediness for foreign approval (remember the Sony deal b/w Mrs Key and Jackson?). I don't know if our power if cheaper but Tiwai Point's endless power deals will have been noted; hydro, geothermal, wind options all a part of the suite of options. Te Tumu Paeroa/Māori Trustee are an anchor tenant in Microsoft's new cloud 'region' (major tick for white liberals), and they need diverse locations for their global risk management. FWIW I think we'll get screwed but you can see their logic.
Just answer the question.
He can't answer the question. He doesn't have the mental capacity to be able to do so.
And he would have been angry if, as CEO of Air NZ, somebody had breached an embargo on the airline's announcement
AI responds to the question with
That said what price does the smelter pay. Much less than some.
Our 3rd ranking on the global Peace Index is probably pretty appealing to multinationals. I'd say the ranking is attributed to all our prev governments.
We may not want to credit them, but this government has successfully cracked down on gangs, controlled public expenditure down from 33%, controlled inflation with the RBNZ, made foreign direct investment more attractive when our economy is in truly dire straits, retained our international credit rating, and got underway a series of massive local deals that will boost the economy once they get cranking.
I want them kicked out but they have done useful things.
Are you being sarcastic?
If only leftie logic prevailed and National would collapse together with support for ACT and NZF.
Surprisingly not.
Ad is posing a counterfactual that lefties need to think about.
I will bite, as to useful?
Those with family now living in Australia,
Those whose 18 to 24 year olds are unable to find work
Those with a lifelong disability
Those Public Servants now unemployed
Those who are in underfunded areas, Health and Education
Those who have been sidelined
Those who are underwater with costs,
Oh you mean the top 10% find all that has been done suits them. Well that is the idea. Take from the bottom 90% and give to the top 10%, all the time saying "it is medicine". Strange how the top 10% seldom get the illness needing the "medicine".
We could have avoided much of this with a comprehensive tax take which should be more equitable.
Relentless, and remorseless – imho. CoC MPs are speed-wrecking NZ, and defending division by wealth with every fibre of their being.
"when our economy is in truly dire straits,"
Caused by them.
Anyone with time and access able to look back to when the labour-led government announced it?
I doubt if luxon would have talked it up and it would be good to provide the two comments (extremes?) in one place.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/nz-covid-19-response-earns-another-major-digital-investment
So now we know how strongly building consents are as a lead indicator for the economy, July 2025's annual figures show the same 33,000 dwellings consented for building as there were last year – down from 50,000 a year when Labour was in power.
building-consents-issued-july-2025.xlsx
So we are in for another economically miserable year for everyone outside of rural towns with a strong dairy economy.