CHIU, Ms Kar Yee, Volunteer and Community Group Member, Voices of Bennelong DUONG, Ms Christie, Community Member, Stop the Slop PRASAD, Ms Nirvana, Volunteer, Stop the Slop [by video link] SHAH, Ms Sanaa, Senior Community Campaigner, Sweltering Cities SHANAAZ, Ms Sophie, Volunteer, Tomorrow Movement, Stop the Slop TITCHKOSKY, Ms Sasha, Volunteer, Lane Cove Responsible Planning TRAINOR, Mr Paul, Member, Lane Cove Responsible Planning Committee met at 10:33 CHAIR ( Senator Hanson-Young ): I declare open this first hearing of the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee inquiry into artificial intelligence and data centres. I begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, and pay my respects to their elders past and present, and extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today. These are public proceedings being audio and video streamed via the parliament's website. There's media in the room and I am assuming, Senator Henderson, you don't have a concern with that? Senator HENDERSON: Okay. CHAIR: We will allow that recording to continue in accordance with our broadcasting resolutions. I remind all witnesses that, in giving evidence to the committee, they are protected by parliamentary privilege. It is unlawful for anyone to threaten or disadvantage a witness on account of evidence given to a committee, and such action may be treated by the Senate as contempt. It is also a contempt to give false or misleading evidence. The committee generally prefers evidence to be given in public, but, under the Senate's resolutions, witnesses do have the right to request to be heard in a private session. If a witness objects to answering a question, they should state the ground upon which the objection is made, and the committee will determine whether we insist on an answer having regard, of course, to the reasons why. If the committee determines to insist on an answer, a witness may request the answer be given in camera. I remind all senators of our obligations under the Behaviour Code for Australian Parliamentarians to treat witnesses with dignity, courtesy, fairness and respect. If there is a question that we ask you that you don't know the answer to and want to take on notice, that's fine. Our deadline for answers taken on notice will be Tuesday 6 October. I now welcome representatives from Lane Cove Responsible Planning, Voices of Bennelong, Stop the Slop and Sweltering Cities. I understand that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to Senate committees has been provided to you. I understand that you were all informed that you can give a short opening statement for each organisation. We'll start with Sweltering Cities and work our way back down the table. Try and keep it not too long; otherwise, we'll run out of time, and we won't get to questions. Ms Shah : Sweltering Cities works with communities across Australia who are impacted by extreme heat to advocate for liveable, equitable and sustainable homes in cities. We know heatwaves are already Australia's deadliest environmental disaster, and places like Western Sydney experience these impacts most acutely through higher temperatures, rising heat related illness and soaring energy bills. As a partner in Stop the Slop, who will be introducing themselves shortly, we share the concern that Western Sydney is increasingly being positioned as a data centre hub, without adequate community engagement or clear communication about the public benefits and costs of this development. A local resident told us, 'No matter the attempts to make these data centres green, the scale these centres are being made means giant lands that once would have absorbed heat and water will now be heat sinks.' We emphasise that communities and households should not be left to absorb the impact of private development through higher energy costs, increased infrastructure pressures, loss of green space or greater exposure to heat and pollution. We are calling for a pause on further data centre approvals until the accumulative community impacts are properly assessed and managed through strong safeguards. This should include heat impact assessments and protections to ensure rising infrastructure and energy demand do not translate into higher costs for households. Planning across Australia, particularly in our most heat impacted regions, should be guided by community priorities and long-term liveability. Data centre development should not lock communities into higher temperatures and higher household costs without proper assessment, safeguards and clear public benefit. CHAIR: Stop the Slop. Ms Prasad : Stop the Slop is a grassroots collective of young people, community workers, researchers and artists opposing the expansion of large-scale data centre projects across Western Sydney. With there being at least 14 hyperscale proposals in Western Sydney, we're concerned about the plans to turn our homes into a data centre hub. Beginning in early 2026, our collective has grown to be featured in national media outlets such as the ABC and the Conversation. Today we welcome the opportunity to present our submission to this inquiry, compiling statements from Western Sydney community members who are concerned about the adverse impacts of rapid and unchecked data centre development on their health, cost of living, Indigenous communities and so much more. Specifically, we've heard from over 200 statements we collected about the Marme Road data centre. Our Western Sydney community feels they're being forced into this situation, with very few households even knowing that it's happening, let alone understanding the possible consequences. That was articulated by one resident of Erskine Park, who lives about six kilometres away from the proposed site. I myself live eight kilometres from the site and never received notice of the proposal. I later found out that the consultation process was so small that it only received four responses. This project sets a precedent for development in Western Sydney as one of the largest proposed data centres in the southern hemisphere. The current lack of transparency and consultation takes advantage of the fact that Western Sydney residents are working people who don't always have time to question every single building around them. For this reason, Stop the Slop is asking for an immediate moratorium on data centres in Western Sydney until we can determine their cumulative impact and have transparency on data centre use, evidence of— CHAIR: We seem to have lost you— Ms Prasad : We propose strong legislation on both data centre development and AI that protects our homes, families, futures and livelihoods. CHAIR: Thank you. Voices of Bennelong. Ms Chiu : Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. Voices of Bennelong is a non-partisan community organisation representing residents in the federal electorate of Bennelong. In our submission, we have highlighted examples of growing data centre clusters in Lane Cove West and North Ryde, which are all within this inner metropolitan electorate of Bennelong and adjacent to homes, schools, sporting and recreational facilities, Lane Cove National Park and Lane Cove River. What is apparent is we have enormous gaps in regulation for assessing these hyperscale data centres. Many have been approved as if they are warehouses with servers. However, when we consider expected energy and water use, noise, light, heat, climate, environment and health impacts, they are more like a 24/7 mine or aluminium smelter. Our concern is that we risk repeating the same mistakes whenever we have multinational companies, foreign investment, a lack of regulation and no enforcement—namely, that we end up bearing the costs and seeing little of the benefit. At a time when we ought to be reducing our emissions and being more judicious about resources in the face of increasing climate risks, we are waving through projects that put our path to net zero at risk. The social license is not there to permit the rollout of these facilities without far greater scrutiny of how they collectively impact our society and our environment. We understand the importance of having such infrastructure in supporting our digital economy, our businesses and the applications and data we rely on. But it is crucial that we be smart about this and strategic instead of haphazard. We ask that there be a pause on further approvals until a national framework is adopted that considers the recommendations in our submission, and that there be urgent interim measures for projects still under assessment that do not meet the expectations of the community, such as those that have not been adequately assessed for their impact on Lane Cove National Park, its river and its endangered species. CHAIR: Thank you. Lane Cove Responsible Planning. Mr Trainor : We thank you for the opportunity to appear today. Our community understands that digital technology is part of Australia's future. However, the current planning system is not equipped to determine whether a hyperscale data centre project is socially, environmentally and economically appropriate for its proposed location. Our community's experience with Project Mars and its proponent, Goodman Group, has left us asking fundamental questions. How can a hyperscale data centre be proposed just 16 metres away from homes, 160 metres from a primary school and adjacent to a sporting precinct used by thousands of children? Given the enormous quantities of diesel and lithium ion batteries stored on site, who protects the Lane Cove River and our national park if something goes wrong? Why aren't fine particulate and NOx filters mandated on diesel generators irrespective of their claimed operating hours? Why isn't ongoing monitoring of noise, air pollution and wastewater a clear and consistent regulatory requirement? Why are data centres largely assessed as individual developments with minimal consideration to the cumulative impacts of emissions, fuel loads, light and heat, resource use and national security risks? When infrastructure can impose profound and lasting change on a community, yet that community has no real influence over location, we need to ask what social licence actually means for an industry that's expanding at this scale. Australians should not have to fight these developments on a project-by-project basis, nor should communities be expected to shoulder the environmental, social and financial costs. We need nationally consistent rules—rules that determine where data centres can be built, how cumulative impacts and risks are assessed and monitored, and how communities and the environment are to be protected. Social licence and genuine community engagement needs to be at the heart of that framework. Thank you. CHAIR: There are obviously already some running themes amongst all your groups about the community consultation element of all of this. The committee has just been to see one of the existing facilities, the AirTrunk facility. But, Mr Trainor, your concern around the new facility, the Goodman facility, is that that facility itself is going to be even closer to homes—that's correct? Mr Trainor : Correct. CHAIR: Do you know what the distance from the AirTrunk facility to residential homes is at the moment? Mr Trainor : I believe it's approximately 150 metres back to the very large scale building on Epping Road called Arise. CHAIR: From where I stood, it looked like about 150 metres. Then the Goodman facility is going to be much, much closer. Mr Trainor : Boundary to boundary, it is 16 metres, and in that corner there'll be a substation. To the house—say, the front door of the gentleman's house—it would be 20 to 25 metres. CHAIR: What has been the community consultation in relation to that facility at this point? Mr Trainor : The community consultation has been, we would say, very light on over the extended period from when it was first proposed, with a number of leaflet drops and a couple of tables in Lane Cove main. That's not even near the site, near the school or near the sporting fields, where you would expect the biggest impact would be that or that they'd actually have some impact. In terms of follow-up consulting, there were a couple of periods where Goodman told us what was going on. Consultation is supposed to be a two-way street. No matter what we as the community could find in an EIS and its appendices of about 3,000 pages and all the issues that that brought up that drove our community to rise up and object to this in great numbers—hundreds of people—they were just telling us what's going on even subsequent to that. NSW Planning has forced them to come back to the community. It is still a process of telling us what is going on. Ms Titchkosky : They've said to us that they weren't really going to change anything in their proposal as a result of any community consultation that they did, and they have refused to come and meet us in person. We've invited them to community meeting, which they've refused to attend. CHAIR: There has been some discussion, but it's all been online. They haven't actually come and met with the community. Ms Titchkosky : No. They did three webinars. They were meant to do two, as this second round of community consultation. The first webinar had a technical glitch, and no-one could join. The second webinar muted any of the community participants, so they weren't allowed to speak; they weren't visible, either. Then Goodman decided which questions that were allowed to be placed in a chat function were answered. If you had another question, or a follow-up as a result of the answer you were given, there was no opportunity to actually ask that. In the third webinar, community participation was even more downgraded. You couldn't see what anyone else had asked or any comments that were made. There was a single line where you could ask your question, and again they chose which questions to answer. CHAIR: What about other engagement with other facilities, or proposals, that have been built? I'm opening the question up to any of the other witnesses. Are you concerned that the lack of transparency and communication is then feeding growing community concern about the impacts of these facilities? Often, if you want to make people feel comfortable about something, you tend to involve them. You show them—you take them on a tour of the facilities—and you talk to them. What's your experience with these companies, in terms of transparency and engagement with the community? Ms Shanaaz : I live less than a kilometre away from the Marsden Park Data Centre, which was approved in 2025. I believe the consultation period took place in November 2024. I, as someone who lives less than a kilometre from this site, only became aware of the development in June of this year. Because of the position of the development as an SSD, there were no letterbox notifications. I believe that it was just posted on the planning portal. From discussion with other community members who live around me, we all share this sentiment that the lack of transparency, with the development going ahead without consultation with those of us who live in the area, is deeply concerning. There are schools and medical facilities around us. There's a day care within hundreds of metres of this—500 or 600 metres, I believe. There are numerous public schools—10 to 15—around the area. We do deeply believe that there's been a lack of transparency in this consultation process, which has not taken on feedback from those of us who will have to bear the brunt of the impacts that these data centres will potentially have in terms of strain on water resources, especially with the incoming summer. The Marsden Park flood plain is also particularly drought-prone and flood-prone and very fire-prone, and we are unsure as to what has been done to address and mitigate these risks for our community. We feel that we have just been told to go about business as usual while this completely life-altering facility is put up next to us. I can see the cranes from my bedroom window, and I didn't even know what they were for until I went looking. CHAIR: Nirvana. Ms Prasad : I live less than 10 kilometres—eight kilometres—away from the Mamre Road Data Centre, which is, at the moment, proposed to be one of Australia's and the Southern Hemisphere's largest data centres. I found out about this in February this year, and that wasn't because of that data centre; it was because, in that same street, there is already one that's about to go into operation this year. Just a few weeks ago, we heard about a third one, also in the same street. The lack of transparency was really concerning to me, because the first one was proposed in 2023 and I heard about this in 2026 when it was a few months away from going into operation. That's about 500 megawatts, which is gigantic. This is also around an aged-care facility, schools and areas that we knew would have a lot of wildlife. From my personal experience and that of other people in the community, we regularly saw kangaroos and lots of wildlife on these same pieces of land that are now going to be used for data centre development. The other thing was about the lack of transparency. When it was raised—for example, in my submission and other people's submissions on NSW Planning—the response wasn't to do further proper community consultation. It was just to reopen the public submission without telling anyone except the people who had already made a submission. So, because I had made a submission, I received a letter saying, 'We've cut down from 18 million litres of diesel to 15 million litres,' but none of my neighbours received that notice, and no-one else who hadn't already been aware of the proposal found out about it from anyone's feedback. It was only through Stop the Slop finding out about it and doing our own letterboxing that we received more community insight, in which a lot of the people's comments said: 'Wow, we didn't know about this. Now that we do, we don't want it.' And, for the third data centre that's just come up, they've made opportunities for— CHAIR: We might move onto some other questions there, if you— Ms Prasad : people from—sure. CHAIR: Thank you. Senator Henderson. Senator HENDERSON: Good morning to you all. Thank you very much for your time. I'm starting with the Lane Cove Responsible Planning group. I want to understand how these centres could be developed. Community consultation is one thing, but the overarching planning laws that allow data centres to be built so close to residential homes—can you please address that issue. Why are these even permitted in the first place, metres within someone's home? Ms Titchkosky : We ask exactly the same question. The issue is that there's a massive regulatory gap at the moment. There's a big black hole where there are no regulations, either federally or at state level, around the siting of data centres. There are no rules that say that they can't be located near someone's house in existence in Australia at the moment. I think Victoria has proposed some, but in New South Wales there's nothing. They're treated as any other industrial classification. In the instance of Lane Cove West, it was originally developed as a light industrial park, and the basis of all the regulatory approvals was formulated given its location adjacent to an established residential area, the national park and the river. And then, when the planning regs were overhauled and they just had one general industrial classification, that captured data centres in there. So where we're at is a gap in the complexity, the scale and the impact of the new version of data centres versus the planning regulations that provide them with their approvals. Senator HENDERSON: I put to you that, in the case of data centres in New South Wales, the New South Wales government has been completely missing in action. The horse has bolted in the case of so many developments, and communities are paying a pretty significant price. As for Ben Carroll, he made some further policy announcements this morning, several years after the Victorian government was ticking off these developments. So surely— CHAIR: That might be something to do with the fact we're going there tomorrow. Senator HENDERSON: Perhaps, but surely the buck stops with the governments which have allowed these data centres to be developed in some of the most inappropriate places. Ms Titchkosky : Yes, and even in New South Wales their policy announcement was about fast-tracking their development. Again, there was nothing in there that mandated setbacks from residential areas or from areas of biodiversity and environmental significance either. There's nothing to do with bushfire-prone zones. 'Fast-track them and get them through in 75 days, but don't worry about the community impacts.' Senator HENDERSON: Regarding the description of data centres as being appropriate for light industrial parks, what do you say to that? Ms Titchkosky : It's completely inappropriate. They should be treated like heavy industry because their impacts are so great. Senator HENDERSON: Why are their impacts so great? If the data centre is self-contained, including in relation to a circular water reticulation system, how can they threaten the local environment? Ms Titchkosky : For instance, if we look at Project Mars, the Goodman proposal, it will store one million litres of diesel fuel and 198,000 kilograms of lithium batteries. There are no provisions that we're aware of that require it to treat any wastewater prior to it being released into our sewerage system. We know there have been recent articles written about the increase in PFAS chemical manufacturing around the world from PFAS chemical manufacturers, and all of that has been done because of the boom in data centres, so PFAS chemicals are going to be coming out in that wastewater. We've already got a federal government action against 3M, but there's nothing that requires them to clean that water and ensure that it's contaminant free. Senator HENDERSON: I'd be interested in the evidence to support your assertion that PFAS chemicals will be in the wastewater, if you're able to provide it. Can you give us any further evidence of that now? Ms Titchkosky : I can't give it to you now. The difficulty we've had is that, when we've asked Goodman about that, they haven't been able to provide us with any knowledge of what's coming out of their data centre—so what's actually being released. It would be really interesting to understand from Sydney Water whether they've been given any of that information. Senator HENDERSON: So that's your assumption, but you can't prove that claim? Ms Titchkosky : I can't prove that that is what is being released specifically by that data centre, because we don't know. But the fact that we don't know is a problem in itself, and we have seen evidence of PFAS contamination in the US from data centres. Senator HENDERSON: Mr Trainor, do you have anything further to add, including in relation to the black hole when it comes to appropriate planning restrictions? Mr Trainor : Yes, I could spend a lot of time on that. We've spent a lot of time working with NSW Planning. We've had a number of meetings on the phone. We've tracked down EPA. That's taken a long time to work through. This is all at the state level, of course. Even with the rules, a lot of it comes back to the rules as they previously existed. Our view is that data centres should have their own asset class with their own tougher regulations around it. I'll give you an example around the EPA. Every data centre in the state, if they're above 200 hours per annum in diesel generator usage—and this is backup generators, but they'll be used at times. They'll have to be tested. They'll have to be commissioned. Every one, whether they're 1.2 gigawatts or 90 megawatts or whatever the number is in between, magically comes below 200 hours per annum. Therefore, they do not need an EPL and a licence from the EPA. That means, whether it is construction dust, noise, sound, light or diesel emissions, none of them are monitored by the EPA. To me, that is just absolutely mad. Senator HENDERSON: In your dealings with Planning, what do they say when you suggest that maybe there should be setbacks and other appropriate places where data centres can and can't be? Mr Trainor : They just say the rules are that it's light industrial or it's industrial that meets the hyperscale data centres, as it stands. Senator HENDERSON: So, as long as something is zoned light industrial, you can build a data centre in New South Wales. Mr Trainor : As the rules stand in New South Wales, yes. Senator HENDERSON: Have you put to Planning that that dramatically needs to change? Mr Trainor : We have indeed. We have verbally. We look forward to meeting them again after Goodman. They're in the response-to-submissions phase of the process, and we'd love to meet with as many people as we can—EPA, NSW Planning, government— Senator HENDERSON: Well, doesn't the buck stop with the Premier, Chris Minns? Mr Trainor : I believe that ultimately it does. Ms Titchkosky : Yes. Even the Prime Minister, when he announced in July that there were going to be national regulations, talked about siting and social licence. The most recent communique from cabinet completely wound that back in the latest communication and their consultation— Senator HENDERSON: Perhaps because the Prime Minister doesn't understand the Constitution— Ms Titchkosky : It's a state question. Senator HENDERSON: because these are state matters— Ms Titchkosky : Yes. Senator HENDERSON: which are solely governed by state governments. So you've had no assurance whatsoever that anything is going to change? Ms Titchkosky : No. Mr Trainor : Can I just add to that, if you don't mind. Our understanding is that, even if it's an EPL, once they're in the planning system, they're in there. There is no follow-up, dare I say, to say, 'The rules have changed; you have to meet the new rules.' So at some point in the future, whether it's retrospective legislation or retrofitting—say, mitigating diesel emissions—that doesn't have to be done under the current planning, as we understand it. Senator HENDERSON: Okay. Thank you. CHAIR: I guess the federal government's announcements around these standards are all for rules to govern what comes next, and what I'm hearing from you and what we're seeing in a lot of the submissions we've had is that these facilities, these data factories, are being built at warp speed right now without any of this. I understand the call for a moratorium. In the absence of that, the rules need to be retrospective. Ms Titchkosky : Yes. CHAIR: And the companies need to be on notice for that. Ms Titchkosky : Yes, completely. Ms Shah : May I add some points here: I think what we need to recognise is the fact that things have changed. Data centres have been developed for a very long time. I work in IT, and what has happened in the past few years is the emergence of AI, but, when we're talking about AI, we're talking specifically about large language models, which need GPUs for the training and inference. We previously did not need that. But a lot of corporate. workloads and all the streaming things that we access and websites are all moving to the cloud anyway, so we have seen that steady move to larger and larger data centres just because of that. But, with AI, it's the intensity and density of the need for high energy, because we're talking GPUs, which require much, much higher levels of energy. Also, when you look at where that energy is being used, it's not specifically to power the chips, but it is to power the cooling systems because they run so hot. So this is orders of magnitude different from what we've talked about in the past when we're talking data centres, and obviously all these developers have seen that there's a regulatory gap—basically an absence of regulation to deal with what we are talking about that has emerged in the past two years—and they're trying to push through as many of the developments as possible as fast as possible before our communities wake up to the reality of what they are and policymakers do too. But we're seeing massive pushback in places like the US. One state alone—I believe it's Virginia—has more than 200 data centres, which is more than Australia has, and they're pushing back and pushing back hard. They're seeing an opportunity. Of course, they can't build more data centres in the US without facing a great deal of opposition. So having to build them here is a great thing, because we still haven't caught up to what they are yet. Communities have not caught up to what they are yet. That's the reality that we're seeing, and I think all these people from the communities are starting to understand what they are, and we're asking these questions. I don't think it was a mistake that The Conversation had a series of articles last week to answer a lot of people's questions. We should be asking what the return on investment for this technology is as well. CHAIR: Thank you. You made your point. I think a lot of the concerns that you've raised are very consistent. You've given us fulsome statements and submissions. If there is anything else that you think we need to know as the inquiry continues, please feel free to forward your information. If, as a result of this hearing happening, all of a sudden the proponents are much more open to consulting with you and engaging with you, that would be good to know as well. Thank you all for your time this morning..