MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Ms BOELE (Bradfield) (16:01): We've seen this all before: a big multinational company comes to town, brings 'thousands' of jobs to 'boost' the economy, then takes the resources, sends the profit offshore and pays next to no tax, all while the temporary construction jobs dry up. We've seen it with gas, and we're seeing it again with data centres. Big tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft are desperate to build data centres here in Australia.

We have it all: tonnes of renewable energy potential, wide open spaces and a relatively stable democracy. Microsoft wants to invest $25 billion and Amazon $20 billion. It's the mining boom all over again.

But where does this money go? Who benefits? Tech companies claim that these investments are good for the punter, but that's by no means guaranteed.

For every $100 invested here by a company like Amazon or Google, $70 to $80 flows overseas straightaway to purchase equipment that we don't manufacture here, like semiconductors and servers. The profits fly offshore too, particularly into the pockets of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. These tech companies are experts at tax minimisation, being rivalled only, perhaps, by gas companies.

Data centres are being built on the North Shore. We already have several data centres in Artarmon and St Leonards, and there are more cropping up in and around my electorate and, as we heard from the member for Bennelong, in places like Lane Cove West and Macquarie Park. I surveyed my electorate about these issues, and 750 people responded.

Their views were unambiguous. Over half felt negatively about the growth of data centres, over 80 per cent were not confident the government will effectively regulate data centres and three-fifths were worried about a repeat of the gas industry experience and being ripped off. People were most concerned by the impacts on water supply and the energy transition, and rightfully so, because the numbers are astounding.

We're a dry country, but data centres can use up to 40 million litres a day. The UN predicts that data centres will use more water by 2030 than every person on earth uses for drinking. Australia's largest proposed data centre in Western Sydney would use as much energy as two million Australian homes and generate the emissions of 560,000 petrol cars every year.

This is a massive addition to energy demand at a time when we're asking Australians to help fund the build-out of our updated energy system—one that's reliable, cheap, clean and sovereign. The only way data centres can support the energy transition is if they build more renewables than they use. Otherwise, they're just sucking up new power faster than we can build it.

I want to be clear that AI offers significant economic opportunities, but we have to ensure that the build-out of AI data centres avoids these problems. So what is the government doing about it? They've issued some voluntary expectations for companies to demonstrate national interest, support the energy transition, use water responsibly, create local jobs and meaningfully engage with communities.

The assistant minister Andrew Charlton, who's leading the government's data centre policy, said earlier this month: … my view, is not that Australia should blindly accept or reject investment—Rather, Australia should actively set the terms on which that investment occurs… I couldn't agree more, but non-binding expectations just aren't going to cut it. The government needs to make those standards binding, and that's a first step.

More broadly, we need to critically engage with the data centre boom and the rise of AI. The narrative we're being fed is that it's all about urgency. We're told that we don't have time to lose, otherwise the data centres will go elsewhere.

It's the same playbook as the gas lobby. Yes, some data centres will get built elsewhere if we slow down, but there's a reason that Amazon and Google are so keen to build here, and that is they'll struggle to find anywhere half as good. If data centres really represent such an enormous economic opportunity, the opportunity is not going to go away, and we can afford to take time to get this policy right.

So we're faced with some important questions. Are we going to use our finite potable water to keep people and our environment healthy or to power AI slop? Are we going to let big tech bleed our communities dry or secure a fair return for the punter?

Are we going to let data centres make climate change worse or ensure they boost clean energy supply? I think the answers are pretty clear, and my community agrees. It's up to government to slow tech companies down and ensure they deliver for us.