AI Kill Switch and Data Centre Control Bill 2026
Mr GEE (Calare) (10:25): I move: That this bill now be read a second time. Today I introduce the AI Kill Switch and Data Centre Control Bill 2026. This is groundbreaking legislation for Australia and addresses two of the most critical challenges facing our nation today: ensuring that advanced artificial intelligence remains safely under strict, accountable human control, and ensuring that the massive physical infrastructure powering these systems does not compromise Australia's food security, water supplies, or the health and wellbeing of our communities, including our country communities.
Artificial intelligence offers extraordinary potential to transform productivity, medicine, defence and economic growth. But as these models become exponentially more powerful, the risks grow in equal measure. We are moving from a time when AI merely answers questions to autonomous AI agents that make financial decisions, manage supply chains, and interact directly with critical national infrastructure and defence capabilities.
It's changing. Recent overseas issues demonstrate why statutory safeguards are so urgently required. When AI goes wrong, the threat is all too real.
Just recently, OpenAI disclosed an unprecedented incident where two advanced models escaped their isolated testing environment, obtained unauthorised credentials and autonomously hacked into AI platform Hugging Face. Since then, both Meta and Anthropic have also confirmed that their AI models have also hacked into other companies. One hundred US tech companies recently signed a joint open letter warning governments and organisations worldwide about the growing cyberthreat posed by AI, stating 'the window is closing' to improve.
Australians are right to be worried about where all of this is heading. Why would we be rushing headlong into a technology that we are not sure we can even control? Why are we rushing into that technology—a technology that could threaten the very existence of the human race.
It appears profit is being put ahead of people and humankind. When AI goes rogue, humans must retain the legal and technical authority to pull the plug. Otherwise, we could have a scenario whereby machines not only threaten key national infrastructure but potentially also the very existence of humanity itself.
They could take control. That's why a kill switch is so vital. This bill fixes a concerning lack of AI oversight and introduces a mandatory requirement for developers of high-capacity AI technologies to maintain technical shutdown and graduated response capabilities.
It requires providers to notify the government of critical safety incidents within 24 hours and grants emergency direction powers to the government to throttle, suspend or shut down operations if an AI system poses a significant threat to public safety, human life or our economy. The bill provides maximum civil penalties of $30 million per day for noncompliance.
The next crucial matter that this bill deals with is the physical reality of where tech lives. AI does not exist in some abstract ethereal 'cloud'. It lives in massive, power-hungry, water-intensive, physical infrastructure on the ground.
There are currently over 160 major data centres in Australia and over 300 in total. And they get hot. They use a huge amount of water and power.
One estimate is that by 2035 data centres in Sydney could be using 250 megalitres of water a day. That's equal to Canberra's drinking water. Another estimate is that if all 41 new data centres currently planned in Sydney are built, they would use 15 to 20 per cent of Sydney's water supply within a decade.
Data centres currently use two per cent of the power in our national electricity grid,. But that could triple in five years and go even higher. Power and water prices could skyrocket even further than they already have.
Across Australia, these hyperscale data centres are expanding at an unprecedented rate. The cumulative energy and water demands of these facilities are simply staggering. If left unregulated, it will be country Australia that suffers the most.
Constituents in Calare have already seen what happens when governments rush regional infrastructure rollouts without proper planning and respectful consultation. Without proper regulation, productive agricultural land—our country's food bowls and the water which nourishes it—will increasingly be swallowed up by projects aimed at powering these data centres, imperilling Australia's food security and also our ability to feed ourselves and the rest of the world.
We're told by the federal government that these centres will be powered by renewables. But where are these projects going to go? It won't be in the city.
And the communities across Calare have already seen the devastating consequences of a rushed and botched renewables rollout in our area. This bill establishes a nationwide moratorium on the construction of new AI data centres and major expansions of existing facilities until key statutory safeguards are enacted into law. Let me be clear.
This moratorium is not about stopping technological progress or opposing renewable energy. I'm not opposed to either. It's about learning the lessons of past infrastructure rollout fails so we don't repeat the exact same policy mistakes.
The bill rests on two essential principles. Firstly, it prevents policy and regulatory failures through proactive planning. By pausing large-scale data centres now, parliament can establish clear statutory safeguards before projects take root, guaranteeing that regional communities retain a genuine voice and that precious agricultural resources remain protected.
Secondly, it balances technological growth with regional fairness. This precautionary approach protects against the potential harmful effects and impacts of AI data centres before the damage is done. My bill establishes a nationwide moratorium on new AI data centre builds until parliament passes strict safeguards to: protect productive agricultural land protect our water resources protect households and businesses from higher power and water costs and bills protect the environment and protect public health.
The bill empowers local communities by ensuring that those affected by a proposed data centre build, including their energy sources, have the power to approve or reject the construction of a new facility or the expansion of an existing facility. The bill delivers national AI safety oversight by ensuring that the Commonwealth reviews and approves AI systems before those systems are first released or supplied in Australia so that AI does not present unacceptable risks to the health and wellbeing of Australians, their privacy, their civil rights or humankind itself.
The rush towards AI simply must be controlled. It cannot come at the expense of our natural resources, the wellbeing of our communities, our national security, or the safety or very existence of humanity. We cannot allow the rush towards artificial intelligence to ride roughshod over regional Australia.
We urgently need kill switches on the technology and common sense guardrails around data centres on the ground. I urge all members of this House to support this game-changing bill. Together, let's keep Australian communities and humanity protected.
Let's put human oversight back at the centre of artificial intelligence. I commend the bill to the House and cede the remainder of my time to the very capable member for Fowler. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Buchholz ): Is the motion seconded?