2026-08-24
The Victorian Greens are gearing up for a showdown with Labor over its unchecked data centre frenzy, announcing they will introduce legislation to Parliament on Tuesday for an immediate moratorium on new data centres - forcing Labor MPs facing growing community backlash to a vote.
The parliamentary showdown comes as pressure mounts on Labor MPs in communities facing massive new developments, with hundreds of people rallying in West Footscray over the weekend calling for a halt to new data centres.
It comes as countless community campaigns against data centres have emerged across the state including in Melton, Geelong, Port Melbourne, Campbellfield, South Morang and many others, as community concerns continue to grow.
Labor has aggressively courted data centres, vowing to be “ruthless” in fast-tracking new developments, declaring they want as many data centres as possible and that Victoria should become the nation’s “data centre centre”.
Independent Climate Council modelling has warned Victoria’s household electricity prices could rise by as much as 23 per cent by 2030 under a high-gas scenario for powering the data centre boom.
The Greens will also move a motion in Parliament forcing the Labor Government to release any modelling it has undertaken on the impact rapidly increasing data centre electricity demand could have on Victoria’s grid and household power prices.
The Greens warn that Victoria could be heading towards a situation like in Ireland where the government’s rapid encouragement and expansion of the sector resulted in surging wholesale energy prices as electricity from data centres grew from 5 per cent national demand in 2015 to 23 per cent in 2025.
Quotes attributable to Leader of the Victorian Greens, Ellen Sandell:
“Labor threw the doors open to big tech, at the expense of our communities. We’ve seen this story before with gas. Big corporations make billions, the profits flow offshore and ordinary people are left paying the price.”
“Labor MPs are being duplicitous with the community, by pretending to oppose these developments at home while fast-tracking them in Government. People are sick of politicians putting their party and powerful vested interests ahead of the communities they’re meant to represent.”
Quotes attributable to the Victorian Greens spokesperson for AI & data centres, Dr Sarah Mansfield:
“These massive data centres chew through extraordinary amounts of electricity and water, take up valuable land and risk driving up power bills, while offering nothing but harm to the communities expected to host them.”
“Labor’s data centre frenzy could see every new megawatt of renewable energy swallowed up by big tech, keeping Victoria burning coal and gas for longer and leaving households to pick up the bill.”