Wednesday, 17 June 2026

 Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (19:14): (1715) My matter is for the Premier, and the action I seek is a moratorium on new data centres. Labor is rolling out the red carpet for uncontrolled data centres across Victoria, lining the pockets of techno-fascist billionaires at the expense of the environment, of the community and of jobs. Unregulated data AI centres harm the environment, and they keep us reliant on dirty fossil fuels.

Electricity and water usage from data centres in Victoria is expected to more than triple by 2030, pushing up Victoria’s energy prices by 23 per cent by 2035. One data centre bigger than the Melbourne CBD is being proposed in Melbourne’s west, and it is expected to consume more power than the state’s largest remaining coal plant produces. These mega data centres also enable tech companies like Palantir and OpenAI to profit from mass surveillance and autonomous weapons of war. They are guzzling drinking water, energy and hectares of valuable land for centres that will provide hardly any jobs once they are built and will threaten privacy, peace and the jobs of workers across industries.

The rapid expansion of unregulated AI is putting our arts community under threat. Artists already face such insecure work and funding instability, and AI puts the livelihood of artists, authors, musicians and journalists as well as so many other workers at even greater risk. Unregulated AI takes jobs and steals content and butchers it. Despite all of these concerns, though, the Premier is bragging and cosying up to big tech and fast-tracking approvals of these mega data centres, completely bypassing community consultation and any necessary checks and balances. You have got to wonder: what are they getting in return?

Data centre expansion is far from essential or inevitable. AI can help us in so many different ways, but unregulated, it can exploit, extract and threaten so much. We need guardrails. That is why I am calling on the Premier for a moratorium on new AI data centres until we have a comprehensive strategy to protect workers; strict environmental, water and energy standards; protection of First Nations cultural heritage; protection of privacy and creative rights; and a guarantee that AI will not be used for harm. It is time to protect workers and communities from the unfettered expansion of AI, to make sure that Labor’s data centre fast-track is not just another ploy to line the pockets of billionaires and big business while the rest of us pay the price.