Labour’s deputy leader has accused the Prime Minister of taking undue credit for the Auckland Amazon data centre announcement.
Amazon hosted a launch event for its Auckland data centres, announcing plans to create 1,000 jobs. The Prime Minister attended the event, praising the pledged $7.5 billion investment.
The tech giant first revealed its plans in 2021, prompting Labour to accuse the government of taking credit for an initiative that began under its tenure. However, Christopher Luxon has denied those claims, saying that he was merely highlighting the importance of the investment.
National and Labour’s deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said Christopher Luxon took more credit than he deserved.
“It certainly felt like he was overspeaking, you know, like pumping it up too much and claiming credit for something that really isn’t a place for him to claim credit.”
Meanwhile, Nicola Willis, who is also a National and Labour deputy leader, said she did not see the Prime Minister as taking any credit.
“When you are the Prime Minister, one of your jobs is to welcome firms that are creating jobs and bringing in investments that are doing you construction. And your job shouldn’t be to say, ‘While politically, this party is responsible or that party is responsible for this investment’; actually, it’s a reflection on New Zealand as a whole.”
She said that both parties should be congratulating each other on the increase in jobs and investment.
In 2021, Amazon’s cloud computing division opened an office spanning two floors in the PWC building at Commercial Bay in central Auckland.
While focused on expanding its New Zealand operations, the company had not yet committed to building one of its advanced data centres in the country at that time.