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7:39 pm, August 22nd, 2026 - 69 comments
Categories: climate change, energy, political parties, science, TOPS, uncategorized -
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The Opportunities Party wants to enrich Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Larry Ellison with our tax payments.
This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from their policy to allow for tax breaks for data centres.
Their policy states:
Our current R&D tax credits deliver good returns, but stop short of incentivising companies to make the big investments needed to roll out cutting-edge technology and don’t incentivise stronger cooperation between private and public researchers. To bridge this gap we will introduce a new tax credit scheme. It will allow claiming back as a tax credit up to 25% of the cost of rolling out high-tech solutions such as AI and digital platforms, new plant and machinery and networked or autonomous equipment.
Sounds neat and sexy doesn’t it. But does this mean that TOP will subsidise data centres? No other conclusion is possible.
And you have to ask. Do the likes of Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos and Ellison need a subsidy from the New Zealand Government?
I don’t think so.
Throughout the world there has been a signifiant negative response to the construction of data centres by local communities.
As I said earlier all these centres are not good for local communities and they are not good for the environment. Many local communities are engaged in fights to oppose the creeping incursion of data centres into their neighbourhoods.
They require huge amounts of power and water.
In the United States it was estimated that in 2024 data centres consumed 4.4% of the country’s total power generation. And that by 2028 this figure could be as high as 12%. At a time when the world is struggling to reduce greenhouse gas emissions this is a whole lot of extra CO2 generation.
As for water estimates are that next year data centres will consume up to 6.6 billion cubic metres of water, half of the United Kingdom’s total consumption just so we can query Chat GPT.
And get this. In the next 12 months it is estimated that the world will spend up to $1.37 trillion US on AI infrastructure.
Compare this to what other areas the money could be spent on.
We could solve world hunger for $265 billion a year.
This spend could also go a long way to resolving the climate crisis. Calculations are that it will cost the world $3.5 trillion per year to develop low emissions assets. Every dollar spent on a power hungry data centre is one dollar less that can be spent on a solar panel.
So for Opportunity to propose that we should subsidise these power and water hungry centres that are no more than a testimony to a penis measuring contest between the richest men on the planet is stupid.
If they want present a progressive future looking world view they will have to do a great deal better than this.
I agree with all you say. Why would we want New Zealand to be giving these huge companies tax breaks?
Water is such a precious world commodity, there are so many around the world running out of water. Look at the Danube.
NZ cannot afford to treat our drinking water reserves in such a cavalier manner, once it is gone it has gone.
We've been treating them in a cavalier manner for decades. Selling off bottling rights to all and sundry for peanuts being only a part of it.
we already treat out drinking water reserves in a cavalier manner. For the industrialists, this is just another small step for mankind.
Well Well!! Opportunity is not for us then?
Nice work Micky. I do wish Labour would join the Greens in their DC policy moratorium though.
I think you're conflating AI models and services with the physical infrastructure they run on.
It's entirely possible for New Zealand businesses to invest heavily in AI, build their own models and applications, and reap the productivity benefits without building a single data centre or cooling one with a single extra litre of water in New Zealand.
Because with cloud computing, that's entirely the point: the technology and the infrastructure it runs on are separate things.
Choosing not to build data centres in New Zealand is a perfectly coherent policy position. Choosing not to adopt technologies because their underlying infrastructure exists somewhere in the world is something quite different.
Irrespective of what you think about data centres, AI isn't going to go away. Data centres will be built somewhere, even if they're not built here. Refusing to adopt AI doesn't prevent those environmental costs; it just ensures somebody else captures more of the productivity benefit.
The relevant policy question is therefore how New Zealand adopts and makes productive use of this technology, not whether we can somehow choose for it not to exist.
Hard to capture the productivity benefit if over half your customers stop using your product or service
Therefore, surely the relevant policy question is how to restore eroding public trust in AI?
Those same Kiwis regularly use AI every time they enter a Google search.
It's very easy to claim that you won't use a service or product that uses AI – but when the AI-based service is cheaper, faster, or more convenient, principles tend to go to the wall.
True. But there's also a big step from Google search to handing your brain to Copilot.
Given the conversations that I've had with people who have just 'googled' something, and then uncritically believed the (wrong) answer that the AI served up – I don't think there is much of a gap at all.
Wealth tends to turn morals into choices for sale.
So those profiting are more likely to lower their principles first
A digital ID is said to be more convenient but do you want one? Many don't. Look at the massive public outrage in the UK.
Despite all its good potential, AI will take our jobs, oversee our police state and is likely to kill us. Strong incentives for one to stand by their principles
So does poverty. If the principled choice is affordable, then the 'unprincipled' one is implemented, instead.
However, it's observable human nature to find a conflict when principles and the consequences of those choices arrive on your doorstep. We see this all the time with NIMBY reactions.
I know a family who are fairly activist green supporters, but who jet off overseas twice a year on extended holidays – and don't seem to find any obvious dissonance between these two sets of principles.
Which pales into insignificance when you consider all the "Small Government", anti tax advocates, whose income and/or business depends entirely on Government "largess"!
Public trust matters, especially for how AI is deployed. But I don't think trust determines whether AI will be adopted.
I'm fairly sure if we'd surveyed people about “computing machines” in the 1950s or 60s, we'd have found plenty of anxiety about those too.
For better or worse, the economics of AI are increasingly compelling enough that it isn't going to be ignored. Organisations that can use it productively will have an advantage over those that can't.
So the policy problem isn't really whether society collectively decides to trust AI enough to permit it to exist. It's how we build the governance, regulation and institutions needed to use it safely while still capturing the productivity gains.
The lack of regulation (NZ is said to be one of the most laxed) and institutions needed to oversee it safely is a big reason behind the lack of trust in it.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/595187/nz-s-approach-to-ai-continues-to-favour-slop-over-substance
The economics of AI are steering the world towards a tech monopolised neo-feudal system and more are seeing it
I agree that weak regulation is part of the trust problem, and I'd support much stronger AI governance than New Zealand currently has.
But I don't think techno-feudalism is somehow an inevitable consequence of the technology.
Just because there are a bunch of sad nerds in Silicon Valley who like to sit around giving themselves raging boners over the prospect of techno-feudalism doesn't mean AI inevitably leads us there, any more than horses inevitably led us to the original variety of feudalism.
Who owns the technology, who captures the productivity gains, how concentrated we allow market power to become, and what rights workers and citizens retain are political and institutional choices.
If we're worried about AI concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few technology companies, that's an argument for regulating that concentration of power, not for assuming it's an intrinsic property of the technology.
Once again, I disagree.
You say you don't think techno-feudalism is somehow an inevitable consequence of the technology. I say it's already coming into play and many are pointing this out. I suggest you look into it further
You talk about how concentrated we allow market power to become failing to notice this is a country that can't even control our supermarkets, power companies (which we own the majority share) etc, let alone us getting on top of big tech.
As AI is part of concentrating wealth and power, it becomes a part of the argument for regulating that concentration of power.
I think you're arguing against something I haven't actually said.
I'm not denying that AI can contribute to concentrations of wealth and power. I explicitly said that it can, and that we should regulate that concentration.
I'm disputing the claim that techno-feudalism is an inevitable consequence of AI. Those are different propositions.
And pointing to our failures to regulate supermarkets or electricity doesn't establish technological inevitability either. It establishes that we need much stronger democratic and regulatory institutions.
Why are you still disputing the claim that techno-feudalism is an inevitable consequence of AI when it's clearly coming into play?
Have you not looked into further?
So you agree that we have failed to regulate supermarkets etc yet somehow think we are all of a sudden going to get on top of regulating big tech? Where pray tell do you think this will and desire is going to come from? Especially seeing as our attempts thus far to regulate AI has failed
I posted this the other day. Perhaps you missed it?
As I've said before, I don't dispute that AI can contribute to concentrations of wealth and power. Neither do I dispute that New Zealand has often done a poor job of regulating concentrated economic power.
What I dispute is your conclusion that because we have failed before, we are therefore incapable of succeeding in future. Because we've also succeeded, and against much longer odds.
We did it in the 1890s against some of the worst excesses of Victorian capitalism. We did it again through the 1930s and 40s, against economic collapse, fascism, and a political order that had literally imprisoned some of the people who went on to build the First Labour Government. And again in constructing the post-war settlement, when the world could just as easily have collapsed back into depression, reaction and conflict from sheer exhaustion.
New Zealand didn't always regulate labour markets, workplace safety, banks, environmental pollution or monopolies particularly well either. We built institutions because people fought politically to build them.
Maybe we'll fail with AI. That's entirely possible. But I'm not prepared to turn the present weakness of our institutions into some immutable law of history.
If we believe concentrated private power is becoming a threat to democracy, that is a reason to exercise democratic power against it, not a reason to assume in advance that democracy has already lost.
I understand your argument. What I reject is the fatalism underlying it.
Taken seriously, that logic would have had Britain surrender in 1940 because defeating Nazi Germany looked impossible, and Martin Luther King Jr die of old age as an obscure but charismatic small-town pastor while Jim Crow sailed on unchallenged.
History is full of things that looked impossible until people organised, built institutions, accumulated power and made them possible.
I don't know that we'll win this fight. But I absolutely reject the proposition that we should concede it before we've even properly begun.
I'm not saying we should concede. I'm asking you where do you think this fight is going to come from when conceding is all we've done thus far?
Do you have any evidence for your claim that "techno-feudalism is an inevitable consequence of AI"? Some kind of crystal ball enabling you to foretell the future? It sounds as though you've reading too much dystopian science fiction.
We know that there are already people excluded from the online world. Access is inequitable (being poor and elderly as significant risk factors – as is being a technophobe luddite).
A challenge is how to manage this now, and into the future. Playing Chicken Little is not a helpful response – since it simply encourages doomsayers. After all, if we're all doomed, then there is no point in seeking to manage the transition.
Believing that you (as an individual) or us (as a country) can have any impact, whatsoever, on the halting or even slowing down the implementation of AI is pure fantasy.
Assuming that the GP are part of the next government and gain their wish to pause all new datacentres. What do you think will happen? I'd happily take bets that the AI development (including by the government) – would continue unabated – and simply use off-shore resources. All you've achieved is displacing the 'big bad' from NZ to Australia (or wherever).
There're a number of catastrophes that could threaten human civilization at any given time, so no I don't think techno-feudalism is an inevitable conclusion. But given where we are at and the current trajectory, it is a highly likely possibility.
Could regulation and better governance save us? Yes, perhaps. But are we seeing compelling evidence to point to robust regulation and better governance coming into play? Not really.
To give you and others a better understanding of where I'm coming from, I have a short (20mins) balanced and easy to understand video that lays it all out.
I'm old enough to remember the angst around the use of calculators in schools (including, heaven help us, exams!). The sky was falling then, as well.
it's not like there aren't consequences to using labour saving tech.
There are. Historically, labour-saving tech has been a vast boon to women, especially. Freeing them from the drudgery of home maintenance, to enable participation in, and being rewarded for, more intellectually challenging work. The introduction of washing machines, electric stoves and heating, and vacuum cleaners – made a profound difference to the quality of life for women in the first part of the 20th century.
Comparing AI to a calculator merely shows how little you know about the capabilities and major risks AI poses.
Genuine question: what do you see as the fundamental distinction here, other than the vastly greater scale and capability?
A calculator automates a subset of cognitive labour that previously had to be performed by humans. AI automates a much broader and more sophisticated subset of cognitive labour.
Obviously the scale of the potential disruption is enormously different. But I'm not sure that makes the underlying comparison invalid. Both displace human labour from particular tasks rather than establishing that human labour itself becomes redundant.
As those in the field keep telling us. Not only are we creating a new form of life that is going to outperform us in every way, we're also handing it more and more control.
Largely making us totally redundant going forward.
I manage a Data and AI function in a critical industry. I am in the field.
I spend a significant part of my professional life thinking about what these systems can do, where they fail, how they should be governed, and what their wider economic effects might be.
That doesn't make me infallible, but it does mean I'm not approaching this from a position of ignorance.
AI systems are becoming more capable, more general and more economically significant. They will displace a lot of tasks and probably reshape a lot of occupations. But that is not the same thing as demonstrating that humans become redundant, or that the evolution of AI will produce some predetermined social outcome.
Those are predictions about the future, not established properties of the technology.
While you manage data and AI function in a critical industry, you're not in the field of creating them (AI) Which is the field I was referring too
You say it's predictions about the future yet it can be seen coming into play now
.
Fair enough, if by “the field” you specifically meant people developing frontier models, then no, that's not what I do.
But expertise in building AI models doesn't give someone privileged knowledge of the political, economic and social systems that will develop around them. Those are questions of economics, politics, institutions and governance as much as computer science.
I've known frontier-model engineers to be wrong. More than once or twice.
Expertise deserves to be taken seriously. It doesn't turn predictions into facts.
And although I might not be building frontier models, a significant part of my day is spent figuring out how real organisations and real people can use AI to solve real problems, while making sure they can do so safely.
I work in the field. What are your qualifications to catastrophize?
Calculators in schools? – inadequate equivalence.
See Res Publica's response above.
https://thestandard.nz/elon-musk-would-be-pleased-with-opportunity-partys-data-centre-policy/#comment-2070593
Well. They were not wholly wrong..
Too many times i've seen people, whose education is entirely, post calculator/computer, accept totally inaccurate answers in engineering design, ship stability and navigation because that is the answer the machine gave them. The ability to question, falsify and do the mental calculations of correct orders of magnitude and logical parameters, is something I had to teach, often!
I see the same effect, magnified with Google even before AI. Obviously AI is going to make it much worse.
Technology has benefits. It also has dangers.
we should ban AIDCs and let other countries pollute and destroy communities so we can carry on BAU with the brave new economy.
This is why I like the GP position. Let's slow down and have a real conversation about the whole thing. Pros and cons. Might help make NZ a better place.
I'm all for slowing down and having a real conversation about the costs and benefits of AI and data centres.
But it needs to be a conversation based on the actual technology and the actual problems. Starting from the premise that data centres inherently "pollute and destroy communities" and then calling for a discussion of the pros and cons feels disappointingly cynical. Especially when the alternative you're suggesting seems to be simply exporting those negative externalities overseas.
Let's actually identify the harms, understand how the technology works, work out which can be mitigated or regulated, and weigh the remaining costs against the benefits.
as someone who has long argued for sustainable farming models while watching dairying trash our environment, I feel like I understand what you are saying here. But I'm more politically luddite on this. Humans don't need AI data centres. We have other options. And we know that a proper approach of assessment won't happen, but instead commerce will run ahead as always, communities will be destroyed, the environment will be trashed. Not all data centres 😉
I use AI at home. There are things I really like about it, and things I think are alarming and harmful. We're just really shit at this, and we allow the techbros to yet again run far ahead with their toys regardless the consequences. These are the techbros who are allied with the people who want armageddon. Not all tech bros 😉
I feel for people in your situation, both in terms of governance and in terms of systems management. AI has so much potential. But atm the harm outweighs the good. No-one is talking about the oil crisis, the impending super El Nino, climate crisis, ecology, limits of growth.
"Not all tech bros" is a sentence I never thought we'd ever see, let alone need.
Much of the AI development is driven out of third world counties with lax development (and environmental laws). Pausing data centre development in NZ – won't have any impact on AI development globally. Or on cutting edge work here (it's just as feasible to be using AI data centre's in Oz, as in NZ – the electrons don't care).
The question is whether there are economic or data sovereignty benefits from onshoring our data and development.
Try thinking about the loss of our land and energy and water to us in this country, for over capacity of this New Thing which is a monster stock market drug.
It is the newest cleverest weapon since trebuchets and tossing bodies infected with deathly diseases into siege cities. This weapon seems so clean and clever and useful; why worry just give in and enjoy the experience. Wake up and smell the roses.
Yeah, so it's fine for us all to use AI and datacentres – so long as they aren't constructed in clean green NZ. Hypocrisy.
Particularly as you, personally, have been perfectly happy to use AI in your searching and posting to TS.
https://thestandard.nz/open-mike-23-06-2026/#comment-2065474
Alright for me, but not for thee?
Banning datacentres in NZ won't slow down AI development (including from within government) – for one millisecond.
You are not hypocrites you people going for AI, and I am not one for using it though I don't like it. I am trying to be a realist. And I think that you argufiers for AI, public servants or whatever you are, fit Upton Sinclair's thought:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
― Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21810-it-is-difficult-to-get-a-man-to-understand-something
I don't think quoting Upton Sinclair is a substitute for engaging with Belladonna's argument.
You don't appear to know what Belladonna does for a living, let alone whether their salary depends on supporting AI. Professional experience with a technology is not evidence of a financial conflict of interest. Otherwise we'd end up treating expertise itself as a reason to discount someone's view.
More importantly, none of that answers the substantive point: if New Zealanders continue consuming AI services hosted overseas, what exactly does preventing those data centres from being built here accomplish, and how do you weigh that against the economic and data-sovereignty consequences of moving the infrastructure offshore?
You can disagree with Belladonna's answer. But suggesting that someone only disagrees with you because they're paid not to understand the issue is a remarkably convenient way of avoiding having to answer them.
Well, yes.
If you are arguing that AI is bad, and that 'we' should not be using it – while continuing to use AI yourself, then you are a hypocrite.
And, no I'm not a public servant (or at least, not for over 30 years) – I work in the commercial environment. Where the reality is, that if we don't use AI to streamline services and reduce costs, we'll be outcompeted by overseas providers who do. And, not only will a medium-size NZ business employing over 100 people go under; all of the money currently being spent in NZ will be spent in Australia (probably, although other countries are also possible).
So if they carved out data centers run by billionaires would it be good policy?
Have you asked them?
TOP is still a worthwhile voting option. Like their UBI & land tax policies- their 'Make Musk richer' policy won't survive the Chris's negotiations (steamroll over). They may get some small wins in their 2nd term.
Unsure of TOP and personally this is a bonkers policy as is the whole DC/AI caper.
I would've thought the GenZ/Millenial party read the room differently than that but hey go you crazy kids.
the land tax is regressive and penalises low income people who own their own home.
The UBI has some holes in it, mostly around social security for people that can't work, or can't fine suitable work.
Opportunities policy IMHO needs to show that the state can keep its own house in order before incentivising more of this chronic waste.
Apart from the failed Immigration Joint Border Management System IT upgrade scandal,
there's the Ministry of Education Novopay scandal (total fixup $182 million),
Health Sector Agreements Programme ($72 million wasted)
Digital Health Platform ($340 million and rising for pretty near zero result)
NZTA National Public Transport Ticketing Solution ($146 million spent so far and likely to go well over a billion)
and the mothership Te Pae Tawhiti for Social Welfare which will go over $2 billion, its own data warehouse for $116 million, and a couple of hundred mill here or there for upgrades.
(appreciate that was a bit of a side track but seriously message to the next government: get some better i.t. system implementers and stop wasting my tax money).
Here in the private sector we are getting multiple workshops from Microsoft SuperUsers to hook in to using AI more and more. My message back is that they are fine for taking meeting notes but I just wouldn't trust them for anything more serious.
Until we have a first Cabinet meeting to use AI, there's no signal that the trust level is sufficient for any company to use it for anything more sensitive than ordering lunch.
I agree that there’s a real problem with technology projects at all levels of government in New Zealand.
But I’m not convinced the private sector is fundamentally different. It also has failed implementations, cost overruns, security incidents and privacy breaches.
I think the underlying problem is usually governance rather than the technology itself: unclear ownership, muddled incentives, weak accountability, and too much focus on procurement rather than aligning technology with organisational capability and strategy.
None of that means AI can’t be deployed safely or usefully. It just means doing so well is hard, and requires competent governance rather than blind enthusiasm.
Agree re AI governance specialists.
I confess I am very skeptical about AI for privacy given the trust my clients put in what I publish and say.The breaches I've seen are honestly terrifying, and I'm not even in health.
I agree that data privacy is a very significant risk. We've already seen AI breaking out of sandboxenvironments and launching cyber attacks – and these are only the admitted ones.
https://bbc.com/news/articles/cx2kgdnyk2po
AI driven scams are becoming more sophisticated – and these definitely won't stop development, regardless of the data laws which might be established in NZ.
Trying to stop datacentres here when we already have 56 operating and another 20 under construction, is at this point like trying to stop the dairy industry expansion. In reality you can't.
There are 33 in Auckland already, not causing a fuss with anyone.
https://www.datacentermap.com/new-zealand/
Also before we run off and regulate when and where datacentres should be – after the fact of those quite uncontroversial 56 centres already here – those opposed might want to check their Kiwisaver isn't exposed to Infratil, with a majority in CDC, a big chunk of Kao datacentres, and 9% of Contact Energy which is a big supplier to those centres.
that's like saying all dairy farms are equal in terms of impact. They're not.
Nor are datacentres. As I stated.
" those opposed might want to check their Kiwisaver isn't exposed to Infratil, with a majority in CDC, a big chunk of Kao datacentres, and 9% of Contact Energy which is a big supplier to those centres."
I think you will find those that are opposed are highly likely to express the view that they are happy to pay more tax for an improved health system so not too fussed by a portion of their Kiwisaver being impacted.
As opposed to the landlord/rentier class that already have enough but still want more, more, more.
If we had the chance to pause the dairy expansion to get some conversations and guidelines around it we would. Fortunately we can for data centres, by voting appropriately
"…those that are opposed are … happy to pay more tax for an improved health system"
Wishing and hoping doesn't make it so. The NZ reality of paying more taxes and expecting more of any public service is as follows:
We had a fuel tax dedicated just for Aucklanders, over a decade. Result for that several hundred million: zero result.
Can anyone point to a public service that increased in quality or reliability when they last raised GST in 1989 or 2010? Go for it!
In health we have increased the health budget from mid-2010s $16 billion a year to $34 billion this year – far faster than population growth. Result: we went backwards on nearly all health measures.
Since 2021 income taxes have increased on those earning over $180,000. I can't think of a public service that's improved in that time with the extra money.
In 2018 and 2021 the Government got a lot more income increasing over time due to the Bright Line Test, and nope we got nothing improved for that either.
Very few people would be able to point to measurable increases in public service levels from the whopping rates rises we have to pay each year. Since the Auckland merger, rates have gone up by on average 85%.
We had trough-loads of subsidy from public-financed debt to get us through the pandemic, and the interest the state now pays has gone up from $3.6 billion a year ago to about $8.9 billion.
So to anyone who tells me that increasing my taxes will mean that we will get better public services, I point them to the last 10 years and say on the evidence: no it doesn't.
There are volumes more examples than those. Apart from the chronic wastage of taxpayer money we see in i.t. system rollouts.
Government needs to do far far better at controlling and delivering from our taxes, before it goes requiring some more from us.
I'm not talking about results, I'm talking about the attitude of some of the citizenry.
I largely agree with what you say. Neo liberal orthodoxy makes it so. The same managers/overseers cycling round the departments. Witness Grannie Moss and her latest appointment.
But as I said to you before Ad, the data centres currently operating in NZ use just 142MW, and these have been developed over a long time period.
Just the two mega DC's proposed recently (Southland and Taranaki) will use 280+250=530MW at a stroke. It is a different league; it is dumb to compare them with the DC's already operating.
Where are you going to get a continuous additional power supply of 530MW? This is the power for 618,000 homes.
I know what National will do-they will import more dirty expensive LNG.
I'd like to see Tame or similar ask Wong if she supports teh GP moratorium and how she understands it.
I think we need to distinguish conventional data centres from AI data centres.
Conventional data centres provide cloud-based storage of software, services and data that government agencies, businesses and their customers depend on every day. There is a data/tech sovereignty argument that suggests we should onshore these things, and if possible move away from technology owned by American or Chinese entities to something that we own and control. That's part of 'De-yankification' – which would go beyond technology into the cultural sphere as well. It may well be a pipe dream at this moment in time.
I gather that AI data centres use more electricity and water because of the sheer processing power they need to mobilise with instant availability. They will be also owned by investors who are backing the AI industry whose sky-high stock valuations can only be predicated on the bet that these things will: replace every white collar job on the planet; that businesses and governments will pay enormous amounts for technology that will do that; and that the job destruction caused by AI will not destroy demand for what those same businesses produce, not destroy the tax base that those same governments depend on, and not produce violent and radical political reaction from the populace.
This is a big bet. Either the bet is not realised and the AI companies collapse financially, or it is realised and the global economy collapses because of demand destruction. For the future of us all, the first option is preferable, while the second is the full horror of capitalism eating its own face (again). My inclination would be to wait on AI data centres and see if the bubble bursts, but treat non-AI data centres as a matter of national sovereignty.
Although the tax credits indirectly assist Musk and other tech billionaires you could also argue that any investment in AI technology anywhere does the same so why shouldn't NZ get the benefits rather than Australia?
While not one cent should go to subsidizing big tech or any corporate multi national, Labour and National both bend over backwards to multinational corporations, and always will, atleast Tops up front on this, Labour and National just do it with little fanfare or public scrutiny and these are the two parties of government.
Top should absolutely be scrutinized over this and so to should every single political party be forensically scrutinized and held to account on their positions around ai, data centers and the regulation of ai and big tech. I fear only the Greens truly take this issue seriously, Labour absolutely cannot be trusted on the issue.
I understand Labour and Green die hards hate Top but at this point there's no realistic way Labour can form a government without them
The worst possible scenario for the left would be Top getting 4.8% and no electorates because Top are hoovering up male Lefty's under 40 who can't handle Labours nothingness or the Greens identity politics. That'd be a lot of wasted left wing votes.
I can realistically see Top getting anywhere from 4.8 to 10%, deciding the next government and being in cabinet after the election, so while I'm deeply deeply excited for a party like TOP (I believe we should have a centerist party like TOP, and I believe we should have a party on the left that is strictly class based and strictly careers to to 40% of Renters unapologetically and the greens aren't a class based movement) but I'm 50/50 on them or the Greens and stuff like this IS important to me.
I do fear getting too nasty will risk blowing up a chance of a coalition and making more people protest vote them of just not vote at all and top gets to 4.8% and makes forming a non national government impossible..
An area Id like to see Top be scrutinized which it hasn't so far, is it's position on Israel and Palestine because this is an essential issue for gen y and gen z, it's a moral and human rights and foreign relations issue which will decide whether it holds on to males under 40, I've heard very little on their position and it's probably going to be my deciding factor between a vote for the Greens or TOP.
I think there are a few different things being conflated here.
First, I think you're substantially overestimating the electoral salience of Israel/Palestine. It is clearly an extremely important issue for a subset of politically engaged voters, including some younger voters, but that's quite different from saying it is an essential issue for Gen Y and Gen Z generally, or that it will determine whether TOP holds onto men under 40.
I'm a man under 40, and I certainly don't recognise that description of my demographic.
Second, I don't really understand the hostility towards TOP winning votes from Labour or the Greens. Those votes don't belong to either party. If TOP is persuading people, particularly younger me, that its policies better represent their interests, then good for TOP. That's democracy.
Labour and the Greens are perfectly entitled to work out why those voters are leaving and persuade them back.
And if the nightmare scenario is TOP getting 4.8%, then that's an argument for taking TOP seriously as part of the progressive political landscape, rather than treating its voters as wayward Labour or Green supporters who need to come home.
Third, I think we're in danger of allowing data centres themselves to become a proxy for the entire politics of AI. They're infrastructure. They have real environmental, energy, water, sovereignty and economic implications and absolutely should be regulated accordingly. But if the presence or absence of a data-centre moratorium is going to determine your vote between two otherwise quite different political parties, I do wonder whether this particular issue has acquired slightly more significance than it warrants.
And finally, while I think it's laudable that the Greens are willing to take a clear position on AI and data centres, I'm not convinced that makes their position particularly well informed.
A moratorium can be a perfectly legitimate temporary measure. But a moratorium isn't an AI policy.
You can't reduce what is arguably the defining socio-technical issue of our age to “stop building data centres” and call the problem solved. AI raises questions about labour and productivity, privacy, competition and market concentration, copyright, energy, data sovereignty, public-sector use, safety, liability, education, economic distribution and the capacity of the state itself.
Eventually you actually have to engage with those problems. What uses should we encourage? What should we regulate? What should we prohibit? What environmental standards should data centres meet? Who should pay for their infrastructure costs and externalities? How do we make sure New Zealand captures some of the economic benefits? How do we prevent excessive dependence on a handful of multinational technology companies? What capability does government itself need to govern all of this competently?
“Taking AI seriously” cannot simply mean being more willing to ban things than everyone else.
Good governance has to be capable of producing a regulated, socially useful yes as well as a no. A moratorium might buy you time to develop that framework. But if you can't explain what comes after the moratorium, then you haven't really produced an AI policy. You've produced a pause button.
And given how important this technology is likely to be, I expect rather more ambition from the left than that.
I'm probably a Green diehard, or at least I've only ever voted for them since the 90s. But I agree with you, TOP would be a good centrist party, a vast improvement on NZF, and we need the kinds of ideas they are bringing. Wong is great, don't know anything about other candidates.
Data centres are a better investment than Taylor Swift or Robbie Williams, or whichever celebrities are the governments flavour of the month..