SYDNEY, Monday 23 March 2026 — Greenpeace Australia Pacific has labelled the Federal authorities’s new expectations for information centres and AI infrastructure launched immediately as critically insufficient, failing to handle the huge impacts of the services on our vitality programs and society, and enabling US-style Large Tech overreach and deregulation.
Greenpeace says the dizzying scale of latest AI information centre improvement in Australia threatens to derail the vitality transition by prolonging reliance on polluting fossil fuels, rising electrical energy costs and consuming monumental portions of water — all to energy an business which can be enabling socially dangerous outcomes.
Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Local weather and Vitality at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, mentioned: “The frenzied construct out of AI information centres in Australia is breathtaking, and following a harmful US-style path the place Large Tech firms have carte blanche to empty native vitality and water, and construct new, polluting fuel and diesel-powered crops to gasoline their operations.
“Australia is following the US down the identical dystopian path of unregulated AI information centre enlargement and overreach by Large Tech firms which might be at greatest driving important local weather and environmental hurt and at worst, producing unlawful express pictures or supporting the US army to bomb civilians in Iran.
“These billionaire-run firms like Amazon, Open AI, Meta have again and again proven themselves to be morally impaired, with not even the perfect pursuits of humanity, not to mention Australians, on the core of their choices. Anticipating them to simply do the best factor as a result of we ask properly is baffling.
“We’re additionally seeing vested-interest foyer teams just like the newly shaped Information Centres Australia aggressively pushing to chop laws that may defend Australians from the local weather, environmental and social impacts of information centres.
“Final 12 months, the Albanese authorities deserted its personal beneficial AI guardrails when it introduced its Nationwide AI Plan — a transfer applauded by these foyer teams.
“The fuel foyer has additionally now seized on information centre development to justify extracting extra fuel, simply because the world must quickly part out fossil fuels for vitality safety and to sort out the local weather disaster.
“We now have a brief and shutting window to decide on a distinct path in Australia — with out robust guardrails, we threat replicating the US sample the place Large Tech firms make big earnings on the expense of locals. The federal government should not roll out the pink carpet to those firms with out satisfactory, legislated protections and scrutiny — not simply ‘nice-to-haves’.”
ENDS
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or [email protected]
