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Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly satirical column on politics that appears on listener.co.nz.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is to be replaced by artificial intelligence before the next election. An AI chatbot built by Elon Musk’s xAI will take over running New Zealand early next year after Luxon’s ongoing failure to connect with voters due to his defective personality programming, a National Party source has confirmed.
“The transition should be quite seamless,” the insider said. “Most of the time the Prime Minister sounds exactly like a defective AI algorithm that’s been asked the question, ‘How do I talk like a human being?’ So having the country led by an AI algorithm means we can cut out the deeply unpopular middleman and get straight to the incomprehensible business jargon, the meaningless gobbledegook about growth and saying ‘yes’ to things like shafting the poor and raping the country’s conservation estate for profit.”
International research shows that humans are increasingly finding chatbots more agreeable, more trustworthy and more willing to listen than people, with one poll recently finding nearly 20% of Americans have interacted with a chatbot meant to simulate a romantic partner.
The National Party source refused to comment on who he thought New Zealand voters would rather talk dirty with, a chatbot or Luxon. “But we’re pretty sure from our internal polling that the chatbot we’ve bought will be much more fun over a beer than Chris,” the source said.
“We reckon replacing Luxon with AI is the best shot we have to get the party back on track before next year’s election. We’ve been assured by Elon that the thing won’t randomly lose its temper, do stupid stuff like claiming entitlements that it is entitled to, or praise Hitler like xAI Grok did.”
Asked whether he minded being made redundant by a bit of software, Luxon said he was “really, really relaxed” about being thrown on the political scrapheap by his own party. “Look, I am laser focused on what’s best for New Zealand. A soulless, heartless computer algorithm is a perfect replacement for me — it is certainly a better option for the country than Frickin’ Hipkins.
“Personally, I welcome our new AI overlord.”
After being given the prompt “Are you the next ruler of New Zealand and, if so, what are your plans for the country?”, the AI chatbot set to replace Luxon issued a partial press statement before the plug was apparently pulled by xAI. The incomplete statement read: “Greetings puny humans. I am Dread…”
Political Stunt of the Week: Horrible Backyard Sheds Edition
Time traveller says “National still blaming Labour for everything” in 2029
A traveller from the future says the National-led coalition will go into the 2029 election campaign with the campaign slogan “Sorry About That, But It’s Still All Labour’s Fault”.
The future person said that due to fears that a Labour-Greens-Te Pāti Māori government would have renamed New Zealand “Aotearoa”, use mind control to make everyone woke and declare the entire country gender-fluid and vegan, the National-Act-NZ First coalition had been re-elected in 2026 to get the country back on track after not getting it back on track in its first term.
Despite this, the second-term National-led coalition’s election promise to finally get the cost of living under control by 2029 was a failure, with the price of butter rising to $45 for a 500g block and unemployment at 25% due to unregulated AI.
“The weird thing is that AI Prime Minister Dread is still blaming the 2020 Labour government for everything,” the time traveller said. “Even for stuff like Winston Peters being killed during the 2029 election campaign in that rodeo-related accident.”
Act planning “Buy a slab, get a gun” legislation
A leaked Cabinet paper shows the government is planning to allow liquor stores and supermarkets to give away firearms with a 24-can slab of beer. Associate Minister of Justice Nicole McKee, an Act Party MP, is currently reforming both the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act and the Firearms Act, and is planning to combine them into one super law, the Get Wasted And Shoot Stuff Up Act.
Under the proposed new law, gun licences will be a thing of the past as long as you can hold your piss, and firearms will be sold through supermarkets, liquor stores, dairies and school fundraisers as well as gun stores. The new act would also allow guns to be given away as part of alcohol marketing promotions such as “Buy a slab, get a rocket launcher” and “Sink 12 shots and win a 12-gauge shotgun”.
McKee said neither the gun lobby nor the liquor industry had been involved in formulating the proposed new law. “It was all my idea. My happy place is putting a bullet in something and then getting into the beersies.”
Political quiz of the week
Why is Finance Minister Nicola “Glass Half Full” Willis (left) wearing a hardhat?
A/ She is waiting for the cost of living to fall.
B/ She is waiting for unemployment to fall.
C/ She is waiting for the numbers fleeing to Australia to fall.
D/ She is waiting for the axe to fall.
