Latest / Best of Business / Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Does Amazon want to play us for fools?

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Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Does Amazon want to play us for fools? · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Now we need to talk about that Amazon announcement yesterday.
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  Speaker 2: These guys have taken us for fools. Ah in this country.
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  Speaker 2: They've looked at us in New Zealand and they've gone,
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  Speaker 2: let's take these guys for fools. That's seven and a
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  Speaker 2: half billion dollars. Wasn't new. It was already announced by
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Justinda four years ago. It's not even actually a convincing
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  Speaker 2: number because it looks like what they've done here has
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  Speaker 2: included their power bills. Now, power bills are not an investment,
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  Speaker 2: they're an operating cost. The thousand jobs that Amazon now
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: tells us that they're supporting also looks questionable. It looks
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  Speaker 2: like they've included people who already work in the electricity sector,
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  Speaker 2: and some say the real number is more likely a
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  Speaker 2: few dozen jobs. Amazon's not building anything. All the data
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  Speaker 2: centers they tell us are now live have actually been
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  Speaker 2: built by other companies, which means that you could argue
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  Speaker 2: that they haven't actually added anything material to the New
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Zealand economy, because if they didn't use those existing data centers.
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  Speaker 2: Someone else would just to be using those existing data centers.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, you could argue that Amazon running those data
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  Speaker 2: centers is actually not the best outcome for New Zealand
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  Speaker 2: because Amazon does not pay tax on all of their
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  Speaker 2: revenue here, which means if another local company use those
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  Speaker 2: data centers and paid full tax like they do, we'd
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  Speaker 2: all be better off. We'd be better off than Amazon
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  Speaker 2: using the centers and then sending hundreds of millions of
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  Speaker 2: dollars overseas like Google and Facebook do. Now, being critical
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  Speaker 2: of that announcement by Amazon yesterday is not the same
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  Speaker 2: as being ungrateful for the good that they're doing. I
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  Speaker 2: think you should interrogate an announcement just a little bit
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  Speaker 2: more than simply taking it at face value, because that
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  Speaker 2: is what Amazon wants you to do. They want to
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  Speaker 2: play us for fools. They want to make us believe
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  Speaker 2: that they're doing good when what they're actually doing is
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  Speaker 2: just making money of us. And that's fair. I don't
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  Speaker 2: mind them making money off us. They're a business, we're customers,
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  Speaker 2: but let's see it for what it is. Let's not
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  Speaker 2: be grateful for them doing business. I still like Amazon's product,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: but to be honest, with you like a little bit
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  Speaker 2: less than I did yesterday when they assumed that this
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  Speaker 2: country was full of stupid people who would just simply
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  Speaker 2: believe anything or
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