The Victorian Greens say that Labor has rolled out the red carpet for big tech companies, approving a boom in hyperscale AI data centres without adequate protections for local communities, cultural heritage, the environment or Victoria\u2019s renewable energy transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It comes after reports the Allan Labor Government is considering fast-tracking two more mega-projects in Truganina and Mickleham in Melbourne\u2019s outer suburbs, via the government\u2019s Development Facilitation Program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AI data centres consume enormous amounts of electricity and water, can require fossil fuels backup generation and place significant pressure on local infrastructure while only creating a handful of ongoing jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Victorian Greens are calling for a moratorium on all new data centres until mandatory standards are in place to protect communities, the environment and the state\u2019s energy supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the Leader of the Victorian Greens, Ellen Sandell:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAI is the new extractive industry and if Labor keeps giving big tech corporations like Meta, Amazon and Palantir special treatment without the right rules in place, they\u2019re going to take our resources and leave Victorians with very little to show for it. It\u2019s the great big gas rip off 2.0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s our communities that suffer with more trucks, air pollution, risks to drinking water and more expensive energy bills because we haven\u2019t planned for how to feed these energy hungry data centres – keeping Victoria hooked on coal and gas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Victorian Greens say that Labor has rolled out the red carpet for big tech companies, approving a boom in hyperscale AI data centres without adequate protections for local communities, cultural heritage, the environment or Victoria\u2019s renewable energy transition. It comes after reports the Allan Labor Government is considering fast-tracking two more mega-projects in Truganina … Continue reading “Labor\u2019s fast-track approvals of AI data centres will be the big gas rip off 2.0”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40027,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40026\/revisions\/40027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}