Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027
Ms WATSON-BROWN (Ryan) (10:58): The new proposed AI data centre in Victoria would be Australia's largest ever, demanding more power than Victoria's biggest coal plant. Data centres like this one consume obscene amounts of land and obscene amounts of energy and water, threaten our energy transition, take away jobs and degrade our environment. What would these data centres do for us?
It's really difficult to imagine any good, when they destroy far more jobs than they create, they increase energy prices and reliance on fossil fuels due to their excessive demand, they degrade our precious water and the surrounding environment, and they're privately owned by foreign corporations that don't pay tax. I don't know about you, but I think that's a very bad deal.
Unfortunately, it appears that the government thinks it's a good deal. I was shocked to read the government's Austrade website, which proudly proclaims Australia is becoming a regional data centre hub, where it is cheaper to build and operate data centres than it is in Asia. For big tech companies, the government rolls out the red carpet and says: 'Step right up.
We're a cheap date.' It's a pretty sweet deal for the multinational corporations, but it is a betrayal of ordinary people and our environment. Why the major parties are so friendly to the big AI companies is not a mystery. Technology companies donated over $13 million to political parties at the last federal election.
Just last week, Anthropic visited Canberra to sign a memorandum of understanding involving exclusive contracts to investigate AI safety. Can you believe it? The government is asking an AI company worth half a trillion dollars to investigate its own industry.
What a joke. Meanwhile, the Victorian government has been so desperate to approve a huge new data centre that they hosted international AI executives at the Australian Open. Regular people don't get that kind of access to our governments, but big AI companies do.
Has the government put any safeguards in place for data centres? No. All they've produced are non-binding expectations—not laws, just expectations.
The government will ask nicely, cross their fingers and hope that big tech companies do the right thing. Wishful thinking? Clearly.
It's a stunning failure to regulate this emerging threat to our jobs, our environment and our energy security. The Greens have established an AI inquiry into those data centres. The government must learn from past mistakes of being slow to regulate new technologies and pass comprehensive legislation to safeguard Australians from AI risks.
The government is representing gas corporations, not the Australian people. Yesterday, I moved a simple amendment calling for a 25 per cent tax on gas exports. Labor MPs voted to defeat it, and One Nation and the LNP didn't even bother to turn up.
Australians are fed up with the gas companies ripping us off. They know that many gas corporations like Santos are paying no company tax. They know that the PRRT scheme is completely ineffective.
We're raising more tax from beer than PRRT. Japan's raising more tax from our gas exports than we are. The PRRT revenue is predicted to go down over the next few years.
They know that a 25 per cent tax on gas exports is a simple and effective way to make gas corporations pay their fair share for our gas—gas that belongs to us, the Australian people. People are sick. They're so sick of the gas corporations having more of a say than them.
They're sick of the donations, the cash-for-access meetings and the revolving door between gas lobbyists, MPs and senior staffers. People know that our health system, our education system and our other public services are underfunded. The $17 billion raised from taxing our gas would help fix that.
Instead, gas corporations are making huge profits from our gas and using that money to continue to lobby against paying their fair share. It's a great, big, self-perpetuating circle of influence over our democracy. I hope that Labor MPs and the minister, who voted against a gas tax, are prepared to answer this question of the Australian people, who overwhelmingly support a tax on gas exports, about why they have once again put the gas corporations first.