Thursday, 30 July 2026

 Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:47): The community in South Morang have been loud and clear: they do not want a hyperscale data centre in their neighbourhood, let alone two. First residents learned that a massive hyperscale data centre had been approved right in the centre of their community, and now a second one is also proposed just up the road. These power-guzzling, water-wasting, fume-emitting sheds of servers do not bring benefits meaningfully to our communities. There are barely any jobs in these places when you look at them. Instead these digital furnaces risk increased power prices, they waste vast amounts of clean drinking water and they pollute our neighbourhoods with noise and fumes. It is time that the Labor government listened to the people of South Morang and people right across this state and halted the approvals of these AI data centres. The community has not been consulted. The approval process is rushed and it is opaque, and now that residents know that they are coming they are resoundingly saying no. The Greens are calling for a moratorium on all new AI data centres. For these communities this is an election issue. Listen to them, not big tech.