Tuesday, 16 June 2026

 Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (21:36): (2574) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Planning, and the action I seek is for her to reject Zerra DC’s permit proposal application for a multimillion-dollar hyperscale data centre at the Broadmeadows Ford factory site and meet with the Broadmeadows Says No to Data Centre local community group.

We have seen the Premier and your government rolling out the red carpet for billionaire tech giants and their data centres with no clear plan for the environmental risk, the demand on energy and water and the employment costs at stake. The Greens, alongside so many in our communities, are deeply concerned about the frenzied fossil fuel data centre boom across Victoria, especially in Broadmeadows in Northern Metro as well as in our western suburbs.

This Allan Labor government is giving a free pass to data centres to be built at a scale and pace that is outstripping the legislative and monitoring safeguards needed to protect Victoria’s water and energy security. We know data centres operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week to process, store and manage massive amounts of digital data. Hyperscale facilities require even more electricity and significant volumes of water to keep servers cool. What this Allan Labor government is glossing over is the potential scale of harm to communities like my community, where I grew up, in Broadmeadows. My constituents are expected to accept these developments without knowing what it could mean for their day-to-day living – how much it will increase the cost of their power bills; reduce access to clean water; increase air pollution to dangerous levels, resulting in poorer health outcomes, such as asthma; and consume land that could instead be used to help address the housing crisis.

Data centres will only amplify existing inequities. Broadmeadows residents are right to be concerned and outraged by this proposal for a hyperscale data centre in their backyard. Communities like the north and west, multicultural and First Nations communities deserve better than becoming the dumping ground for developments that benefit tech billionaire corporations. It is essential that we protect the health, safety and wellbeing of our community as much as we consider the environmental and economic impacts. The data centre boom is locking us into a fossil-fuel intensive, climate disaster future at a time when we should be rapidly reducing emissions and building a cleaner, more sustainable economy.