Interview with Tom Robinson, ABC Northern Territory Country Hour

CHARLES GEARY, HOST: As the AI and data centre industry continues to grow, the federal government says it needs strong regulation to protect Australia's water. Federal Environment and Water Minister Murray Watt is in charge of negotiating national standards with the states and territories. There's been a few speed bumps - Queensland and the NT have not agreed to any national set of rules.

Murray Watt is in the Territory today and swung by the Country Hour studio to explain how those water negotiations are going. MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: You would have seen at that meeting we didn't get agreement from the Queensland and Northern Territory Governments, but to be fair, the Northern Territory Minister had another commitment that day and was not in a position to commit.

But I've had some very productive discussions with him since then, that's Josh Burgoyne. I think he understands the real community angst that there is around the potential water use by data centres here in the Territory, just as there is right across the country. And that’s what’s led us to putting in place those strong national standards to make sure that we’re minimising water use.

I think whether you're living in one of our large capital cities or a remote part of the Northern Territory, people are conscious that these data centres are coming, and also that if they're not managed properly, and controlled and regulated, they could have very serious impacts on the water table. I meet farmers all around the country who are concerned about those impacts.

And that's why we're, basically, trying to put in place some national standards that do require data centres to minimise their water use, to use some of the more water-efficient technology that's available, to use recycled water. To use some of those other water sources that aren't a drain on urban or agricultural water. TOM ROBINSON, REPORTER: Have you got Queensland to sign up?

MURRAY WATT: Queensland were much more reluctant, I have to say, and our discussions are continuing with them about that. But we don't intend to back away from the need to respond to community concern about this issue. Again, I think whether you're a farmer in the Northern Territory or someone in Palmerston here in Darwin, you're concerned about the water usage of these data centres, about what it might mean.

And of course, there are a range of other industries, including agriculture, that rely on water that we don't want to see disrupted. So I think that Queensland is out of step with where community sentiment is at. They haven't been as firm on the water issue as they were on energy issues, so I remain hopeful that they will get on board.

And, frankly, even if they don't we're intending to go ahead and legislate to require this. TOM ROBINSON: On the energy issue, your colleague, Chris Bowen, has had some difficulty getting, I guess, agreement. So Queensland and the Northern Territory have claimed they got carve-outs on renewable energy mandates.

The Commonwealth then sort of denied that and it's just kind of up in the air - it feels like as an outsider - are we going to get similar uncertainty with water use? MURRAY WATT: I don't think so. I mean, the reality is that we do have much stronger powers at the federal level around energy than we do with water, and this comes down to our constitutional powers as a federal government.

We're much more easily able to regulate energy matters, than we are water. You'd be aware that water management, traditionally, is a state, territory and even local government responsibility, so the federal government doesn't tend to get as involved in water regulation. But we are very confident that we have the power to put in place those standards.

We would always prefer to do these things in cooperation with states and territories, and I think that's what communities expect us to do. But we've made very clear that we are going to be going ahead and legislating these standards when it comes to water use. As a government, we can see that there’s a lot of benefit to Australia in hosting data centres; there's jobs that come from it, there's national security reasons for us to do it.

As the Prime Minister has said, we don't want to just be a country that buys artificial intelligence off the shelf from other (countries), we should be involved in producing that and being at the front of the queue. So there are some benefits, but we need to do it properly. And if we don't have these standards in place, that does risk there being a race to the bottom across the states and territories offering all sorts of options to data centre developers to get the business but at the expense of communities, and we're not going to let that happen.

TOM ROBINSON: You’ve sort of- you did touch on it, but I'd say community concern is quite high about the data centre issue. Just today it was revealed an Open AI agent has hacked into the Australian Medicare data portal. Minister, is it even possible to bring this industry and investment in, in a responsible way that keeps everyone happy?

MURRAY WATT: We think it is, as a government, but it's important we act now. There are, obviously, some data centres that have been built in different parts of the country already where these requirements don’t apply because they’ve been built. But there’s a lot more of this kind of investment that we know wants to come to Australia and that's why it's important we put these regulations in now before we get that onslaught of investment and it's all too late.

TOM ROBINSON: Another big international issue within your portfolio is the ongoing outbreak of H5 bird flu. And I understand you've been visiting some remote parts of the Territory recently, which is nice, and rangers in those remote areas will be crucial to monitoring for bird flu in the Northern Territory. Do you think we're prepared for if and when it arrives here?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, I do think we are. And not only do I sort of feel that based on what I'm told in Canberra but, as you said, I've spent the last couple of days in remote parts of the Northern Territory – Maningrida, Ramingining, Kakadu yesterday, and bird flu was a topic that came up everywhere I went. It was really interesting to spend some time with some of the Indigenous rangers in Maningrida who are doing great work travelling out to some of the remote islands to, literally, take samples of bird poo on those islands, excuse the French, to then be tested for bird flu.

And they're also monitoring those kind of remote places to see whether there have been large deaths of birds, which is obviously a warning sign about this as well. It's something we have been preparing for, for quite some time as a government and in partnership with state and territory governments as well. We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years trying to build up the populations of some of our most endangered species, including birds.

Now, that's good for the environment just generally, but it's also been good preparedness work for bird flu. Because as I was explaining just before we came on air, you know, if you think about an endangered species, if there’s 5,000 of them to begin with and you lose 500 from bird flu, you can probably recover from that – so you want to keep the numbers as high as you can.

But if you let that number fall away too much and there’s only 500 left and then you have bird flu, then you've got an extinction on your hands. So all of that work that we've been doing with the Territory Government, with rangers, with other organisations around eradicating feral animals which do a lot of damage to our endangered species - they tear up habitat, they literally eat or destroy eggs - removing feral cats, feral buffaloes, feral pigs, that kind of work is also an investment in trying to make sure we're prepared for bird flu if and when it comes to the Northern Territory.

TOM ROBINSON: And as it stands, the Territory is the only state or territory without bird flu, alongside the ACT. Given the size of the Territory though, and the sparse population that we have here, is it possible bird flu could arrive undetected in the Northern Territory? MURRAY WATT: That is always possible, but I'm confident that the surveillance measures that we've put in place are putting us in a good position to identify it if it does come here.

It's great that the Northern Territory hasn't had a case yet. I can't guarantee it's going to stay that way because, again, even where I've been in the last couple of days I've witnessed migratory species that are coming here from countries around the world that do have this strain of bird flu. So all we can do is be as prepared as possible for if it does come here.

TOM ROBINSON: There probably is a degree of inevitability to it. On another matter, some research has come out showing dugong numbers in the Gulf of Carpentaria have dropped by 50 percent. And the research has suggested a range of reasons as to why that may be, one of which was commercial fishing could be playing a role.

The industry is pushing back against that and feel that they aren't to blame. What do you think? MURRAY WATT: Yeah, I've certainly followed this debate.

And not only that, we've invested about $5 million in the last couple of years towards dugong preservation and habitat and things like that as well, and some of the research. And we supported the recent survey that's given rise to this debate and the figures. What I've seen from that survey is that there are certainly concerning drops in numbers of dugongs in Queensland waters, in the Gulf - not as bad in the Northern Territory, but we've still got to keep an eye on that.

I've seen a number of reasons put forward groups about what the cause of it could be - seagrass habitat removal and damage is also another possibility. I think what this shows is that we do need to keep doing this research, investing in the resilience of our dugong population. They're obviously an incredible species that we all want to look after.

I'm not really in a position to say today, ‘this is the reason’, but I think we've got to consider all of the possibilities and get to the bottom of it because we want them to remain in place. TOM ROBINSON: Murray Watt, thanks for your time. MURRAY WATT: Thanks, Tom.

We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.