Parliament of Victoria | Legislative Council | Documents Motion by Ms Mansfield
12 August 2026
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan Region):
I rise to support this motion from Dr Mansfield, and I endorse her comments and will not repeat them. I have never really believed in vampires, but I have to say, having now been introduced to the data centre industry, I have changed my mind, because we are seeing across the west and north-western suburbs monsters being unleashed, ones that will consume vast amounts of electricity, ones that will consume vast amounts of water.
We are seeing a veritable feeding frenzy of developers trying to get their snouts into the data centre trough. They are made up of both the global giants of artificial intelligence and increasingly a sort of rabble of vampire carpetbaggers who sense a potential river of gold. Most distressingly, this is being facilitated by the appropriately named development facilitation unit within the Department of Transport and Planning. This is a black box.
We know now, roughly, that there are around 50 data centres in place, but they are all very small compared to what is coming. I guess what is really disturbing is we know that there are somewhere around 20 to 30 other data centres – hyperscale centres – which will use exponentially more water, more power and more land than the 50 that are already on the ground.
The thing that I think is really disturbing communities across the west and the north-west is the absolute lack of transparency. We are left to read the latest article or the latest press release. I know in terms of my backyard – wow – yesterday or earlier this week, we found out that HiQ are not only dipping their foot into waste-to-energy incinerators but have now abandoned their approach of powering Sunbury and are going to whack a data centre in there, even though the amount of electricity would only make up a fraction of what they need.
This is a disturbing time. We are seeing councils like Hobsons Bay saying they were provided with improper or inaccurate information from the government and then given 14 days to process a billion-dollar project.
Last night we saw Hume council take a stand and call for a moratorium on these approvals to allow for consideration of what the feds are doing with regard to guidelines, to call for a Victorian parliamentary select committee and to set up a joint state and local government taskforce to consider an appropriate regulatory framework.
Now, in the interim, let us just have some info, shall we? Just let us know what is going on. There is already an outstanding documents motion for the much-vaunted but never seen sustainable data centre action plan. Ms Terpstra, who I am pleased to see has re-entered, has suggested that rather than worrying about that, we should focus on recycled bong water.
I would also say that what is being sought by the Greens is a very basic thing – show us the calculations and show us the benefits, because they are entirely unapparent. We want this in the light. We do not want people treated like mushrooms – kept in the dark and fed you-know-what.
[Motion passed without dissent]
