DRAPANIOTIS, Ms Anastasia, Group Representative and Registered Nurse, Northern Community Says No to Mega Data Centre LAI, Mr Remy (Raymond), Private capacity McKENZIE HOCKING, Mx Michael, Private capacity PARKER, Ms Rebecca, Community Member, Port Melbourne Action Group WHITFIELD, Dr Richard, Member, Port Melbourne Action Group [10:20] CHAIR: Welcome. Information on parliamentary privilege has been provided to you. Do you have any comments to make on the capacity in which you appear? Mr Lai : I'm here representing the Clyde North Data Centre Community Group. Mx McKenzie Hocking : I'm representing the Clyde North Data Centre Community Group. CHAIR: Port Melbourne Action Group, which of you is going to give the opening statement? Ms Parker : I am. CHAIR: Great. Go ahead. Ms Parker : First of all, thank you, Senator Hanson-Young and Senator Hodgins-May, for calling this inquiry and letting community members have a chance to speak. I'm a long-time Port Phillip and City of Melbourne resident. I, like many community members, found out about the Port Melbourne M4 hyperscale data centre after it had already been approved by the planning minister. Very little information about the development has been disseminated to the public. With some other community members, we quickly formed a community group to find out more about the approved development and respond to it. The key areas of concern for the Port Melbourne community—like many of the other communities—are: the M4 data centre will hold 900 tonnes of highly flammable and toxic lithium ion batteries and 3.5 million litres of diesel fuel on site; 80,000 apartments are slated to be built next to the data centre in the Fishermans Bend development area; and the data centre will use vast amounts of non-renewable energy and drinkable water and cause a huge amount of heat to go out into the community. It sits adjacent to the Westgate Park nature reserve, which is a bushfire zone. NEXTDC CEO, Craig Scroggie, says the M4 data centre will house AI capabilities for 'defence research and deep tech'. As far as we know, there has been no formal risk assessment done by the state government for this development. There's been no formal EPA assessment. There's been no formal assessment by Fire Rescue Victoria. I work in architecture. When I design a modest extension to a house, I have to get a flood and bushfire assessment and prove that the development will reach the seven-star energy rating requirements. It's not easy to meet these requirements for a tiny little extension to a house, yet a huge toxic and flammable development has been approved in a residential area with no fire, energy, water or safety assessment as far as we have seen. Data centres will provide very few long-term jobs for the people of Melbourne. In fact, building data centres will take essential construction workers, of which we currently have a huge shortage, away from building housing, which we desperately need. This will result in increased house construction prices and exacerbate the housing shortage. The Port Melbourne Action Group demand an immediate pause on AI data centre construction and approvals until independent and transparent risk assessments have been done. Thank you. CHAIR: Thank you. Mx McKenzie Hocking? Mx McKenzie Hocking : We represent the Clyde North Data Centre Community Action Group, a Facebook group garnering over 1,200 members in just eight weeks. This group has had many active members who have committed innumerous actions, which include holding a number of protests and rallies, attending dozens of AI and data centre events and meetings around Melbourne, doorknocking to provide awareness to the local community and starting a parliamentary petition that has collected over 2,000 paper signatures in just over a month. This will be tabled this week, the last parliamentary sitting week of this year. Through the thousands of conversations that we've had, many themes have emerged, including a lack of consultation, consideration and consent to build the proposed Clyde North data centre, referred to as Casey Data Park by its developers. Our action group has heard from a diverse demographic of residents, including migrants, young families and disabled people, some of whom, like me, live across the road from the proposed site and all of whom will be further impoverished by the data centre and a system that tries to silence their voices. Through further discussions and submissions with community statements, many members have raised numerous concerns about the proposed data centre, which include pollution that comes in many forms, including diesel generation, as we've heard; environmental harm to the local ecosystem and water supplies; economic harms; harms to health; mass surveillance; rise of utility bills; and damages to home values. Nicole F believes it is 'unfair for huge organisations to influence our governments with huge sums of money at the expense of people'. Sarah S raised the concern that, given climate forecasts, 'What guarantees do we have that the public, and not data centres, will have ultimate access to an ever-shrinking water supply?' Armit PK highlighted documented evidence and numerous examples detailing the 'severe negative impacts on residents living near data centres that is frequently shared from the experiences of others', such as people living in Footscray. Amanda B raises the concern that their compromised immune system and neurodivergence makes them more susceptible to information and sensory overwhelm from the sound and infrasound generated by these hyperindustrial developments. Many residents raised the point, echoed by Fire Rescue Victoria, that thermal runaway risks pose a clear and present danger to local residents who may find themselves living in a mandatory evacuation zone. Others have raised concerns in relation to the impacts to electricity prices and the ecological impact on the local environment and biodiversity in Clyde North and the surrounding areas, especially our endangered bird wildlife, such as the black cockatoo. Listed by the developer as requiring 720 megavolt amps, the electricity consumption of this data centre makes it clear it will be used for AI technology. Concerns over the cost of utility bills and the flow-on effects onto the cost-of-living crisis is also high within the Casey community. We cannot discuss the risks posed by AI data centres without speaking out against their use as exacerbators of gendered violence, particularly against children. A recent 2026 study by the Australian Cybercrime Observatory has found that before turning 18, one in 25 people have experienced or have a friend who has experienced online sexual victimisation where the perpetrator used AI. One in three recorded being worried about being sexually victimised with the use of AI, and current generation artificial intelligence is not consent based. It has been trained as a weapon of war and has no adequate safeguards to prevent the abuse of children and vulnerable communities. We have also seen many cases of individuals using AI to create deepfakes being convicted around Australia. The opportunity of AI must be seized with clear apprehension and mitigation of its risks. Consistent with the UN General Assembly resolution 78/265: … human rights and fundamental freedoms must be respected, protected and promoted throughout the life cycle of artificial intelligence systems … The answer is clear. We demand a moratorium on hyperscale AI data centres now so that a safe future for humanity is assured tomorrow. Thank you. Ms Drapaniotis : Good morning, and thank you for having me. I apologise if I get a little bit emotional. I am a registered nurse and I have lived in Campbellfield with my family for 19 years. I am here today to represent my community. While my submission has all the facts and figures, today I want to talk about people. Campbellfield is home to almost 5,000 people, including more than 1,200 young people. Our community is already busy and noisy with planes, trains, heavy vehicles, traffic, sirens and helicopters. In all that chaos, there are still moments of peace. When everything settles, there is a stillness in the air. My concern is that a 24-hour mega data centre could replace that stillness with a constant hum of machinery, cooling systems, generators, transformers running day and night; a permanent presence that we cannot turn off or escape from. It will be 180 metres away from our homes and local businesses. Our concerns are about health, safety and quality of life; noise and light pollution; diesel emissions; lithium-ion batteries; fire safety; emergency services; and heat. We all know that clean air, adequate sleep and a safe environment are fundamental to health, particularly for our children and vulnerable members of our community. We also have many unanswered questions and concerns about lack of community consultation, transparency and access to information. Based on the development of rushed guidelines and so-called guardrails after the fact, the government has approved, and will continue to approve, the mega data centres without proper scrutiny and care for the community. Therefore, I call for a moratorium on new mega data centres until their health, safety, environmental and infrastructure impacts can be properly assessed and for the Campbellfield proposal to be rejected. Our vision is simple: we want Campbellfield to remain a place where families can raise their children safely, where older residents can remain in the homes they have spent decades building, and where people can come home and experience peace. Everyone has a human right to live a peaceful life in our own home, and our community deserves that peace too. Thank you. CHAIR: Thank you. I'll go to Senator Henderson, if you're ready. Senator HENDERSON: Yes. Thank you very much, Chair. Good morning to you, Ms Drapaniotis. I want to start with you. You just gave an emotional opening statement. Can I ask you to add to why this is, as you would say, impacting lives very significantly in Campbellfield? Ms Drapaniotis : Yes. The proposed data centre has not been approved yet but it is already affecting us because we are rallying and there are sleepless nights already because we're stressed about what we're hearing from other communities about what they're already going through and facing. If this does get approved, I believe there are major health concerns. And these are for things that we already know about diesel emissions, about noise. There have been studies done for years. We already know about the pollutants and what they can do. For example, there are the concerns around PM2.5. It's very fine particulate matter. Exposure is associated with respiratory and cardiovascular disease, hospitalisation, early mortality. The particular concern is for residents who are already living with health ailments—asthma, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, COPD and other chronic conditions. These are things that are going to affect the community. And then, of course, you have the noise. We're hearing from other communities that there is that constant hum, there is that noise. This is a building full of servers and computers. It's obvious, even when you're working on your one computer, as it overheats it starts to create a hum, so imagine that on a large scale. And this is going to be on 22 hectares of land; 336 megawatts of power. That's a lot of power. It's enough to power 350,000 homes. Residents are concerned about the power usage and how that's going to affect us and our rates. We're working-class citizens. People are already struggling to feed their families. The noise can affect our children's sleep, which can lead to behavioural issues, increased agitation and lack of concentration. These are all real things and real concerns that the community have. I really believe that this needs to be addressed and considered before something like this comes so close to residential homes. It's the light as well, keeping people up at night—lighting up the sky as if it's daylight. How is any of this allowed? It's 7 million litres of diesel. I couldn't even comprehend that when I first heard it. That comes from their own reports, and it says on there that there are approximately 24,700 kilos of lithium ion batteries. How is this being allowed? Senator HENDERSON: I might go to the Port Melbourne Action Group. Port Melbourne is inner Melbourne and very high density. There are a lot of historic elements to Port Melbourne. Can you give us more information about the scope of your concerns in relation to what the impact is on the entire Port Melbourne community? Dr Whitfield : I think the first major concern is the lack of consultation and the lack of transparency. The first thing we heard about this data centre proposal was the announcement that it had been approved as essential infrastructure, bypassing all the normal planning controls with no consultation from the community. That's very concerning. It's being done in secret. It's very, very disturbing. The second thing is that successive Victorian governments have spent a lot of time and effort to convert Fishermans Bend from an industrial area to a residential area. They've spent a lot of time and effort to make it a residential area, and now they want to put large industrial facilities in what is now a residential area. That seems to be very illogical and very strange. Thirdly is that we are very concerned, as are many others, about fire risk and the fact that there has been no adequate fire-risk assessment. In the Port Melbourne case. They're talking about 900 tonnes of lithium batteries and umpteen million litres of diesel. The problem is that Port Melbourne is a residential area. It is also the Port of Melbourne. If there is a large fire, then the Port of Melbourne shuts down. We've seen what happens when that happens with the Coote Island fire in the nineties or whenever it was. Finally, it's underneath or very near the West Gate Bridge, which is a major artery for transport in and out of Melbourne. Senator HENDERSON: This project is approved at 127 Todd Road, Fishermans Bend. Dr Whitfield : Yes, exactly. Senator HENDERSON: How close is this to the nearest home? Ms Parker : It's about 500 metres, I believe, to some luxury townhouses. I would say they probably cost a lot of money to buy. They will not be able to be sold for very much money. Senator HENDERSON: I mean, 500 metres is a big difference from the 20 metres we've heard. Ms Parker : Right, but it's still very close. You would still be able to hear the humming of the data centre. You would be able to smell the diesel when the generators are in use, and you would potentially have power supply issues. If there were a fire, based on the Coote Island example, you might have to evacuate 10 kilometres around the data centre. That would go all the way from Ascot Vale in the west to, I believe, Preston in the north and all of the way around. Basically the whole of inner-city Melbourne would have to be evacuated if there were a fire because of the toxic fumes from the lithium ion batteries. That has not been assessed. Senator HENDERSON: How have NEXTDC, which is obviously the developer, engaged with you, and have they made any concessions? Dr Whitfield : There has been no discussion. Senator HENDERSON: They haven't met or have declined to discuss this with you? Dr Whitfield : We're still developing our community group. We, as far as I know, have not been in contact with them, but there has been no communication from them talking to the community at all. One other point that I would like to make is that Fishermans Bend is slated to have an additional 80,000 residents in the next 20 years and another 70,000 jobs, with people working in the area. While there may not be that many residents at the moment affected, in the next 10 or 20 years, there will be huge numbers of people that would be affected. Senator HENDERSON: It's obviously zoned industrial, though, where they— Dr Whitfield : No, it's zoned residential. Senator HENDERSON: It is zoned residential where they are constructing the data centre? They couldn't do that, surely. Dr Whitfield : I'm not 100 per cent sure on that. Senator HENDERSON: Traditionally Fishermans Bend has been a car-manufacturing zone. Dr Whitfield : The whole Fishermans Bend development, if you look at all the maps, talks about residential. Senator HENDERSON: On notice could you come back to the committee with further information about the zoning. To Clyde North, can I understand the exact location where the data centre is? Mx McKenzie Hocking : The proposed location is essentially across the road from a Bunnings. I think it's 685 Berwick-Cranbourne Road. According to the developer, the closest residential home is 150 metres, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where that number has come from in Labor's announced so-called minimum safety standards. Senator HENDERSON: It's about 150 metres to the nearest— Mx McKenzie Hocking : According to the developer, the nearest residential home is 150 metres away. Senator HENDERSON: Hearing some of the evidence and also Ms Drapaniotis talking about impacts on health, do you recognise the important role that data centres play in terms of giving Australians access to this next generation technology and all the other things that AI is capable of doing—the good that it can do in this country? How do you balance that with protecting local communities? Do you accept that it's important that they are on Australian soil, and what you're seeking is stronger safeguards, or are you saying, 'We don't want data centres at all'? Members of the audience interjecting— CHAIR: Order! Mx McKenzie Hocking : I'm not saying data centres shouldn't be built. I'm suggesting they need to be built safely, and they need to be built in consultation with the local communities that are impacted by them. The business case for hyperscale AI surveillance data centres is not clear. We are currently in an underregulated moment and a pivotal turning point in this country. The risk of proceeding with great haste without explanation is not dissimilar from The Simpsons episode where the town is convinced to invest in a monorail, where the benefits are not explained and the risks and costs are borne by the community. It is incumbent upon the giant technological corporations to explain—I understand how corporations will benefit from AI data centres on cheap land acquired in Australia—how that benefits Australians. How does that benefit Australian workers, and how does that benefit the local residents that chose these communities for their quiet and peaceful enjoyment? Senator HENDERSON: Did you want to say something, Mr Lai? Mr Lai : Yes. There's a lot of talk about AI being used in hospitals and stuff. To me, it seems like it's just the AI companies promoting themselves. There are a lot of issues in regard to AI use in hospitals, from what I understand. In the UK, when they transcribe what doctors say, that can often go wrong. Imagine if someone's medical history or what the doctor has transcribed is wrong. That could have really negative impacts later on. They could get the wrong medication, or they could get the wrong surgery. It could be devastating to patients. We also have to think of what these data centres do to the physical health of people who live very close by. I know there are a few studies in the US where they've explored how, in living close to data centres, young people would often develop respiratory issues. Mums would have children who had respiratory issues and much smaller lung capacity—all that type of stuff. When we also examine how AI is being used in schools, the OECD recently released a report that highlighted how young people who used AI more scored less or were less capable than those who used it infrequently or not at all. I feel like the hype around AI is overblown and it's just being talked about by billionaires who really want to sell AI. When we look at these people, like Elon Musk, for example—this guy has told us that we would be on Mars I don't know how many times. We're nowhere near close. We have self-driving cars. All the cars are crashing in the streets and stuff like that. So it feels like a con job to be honest. CHAIR: In relation to the Clyde North centre—this is a proposed facility—what status is it up to? Has any construction started as yet, or is it just on paper? Mx McKenzie Hocking : Works have committed on the site. There was a separate planning permission given for works to commence. But, as I understand it, the substantive planning permission has not yet been approved. There's been very little consultation due to the fact that Casey City Council decreed that public scrutiny was exempt from this particular planning permission because there was an existing Croskell planning overlay, which essentially was a plan to build a commercial park. Nowhere in that planning overlay was the word 'hyperscale' used. Nowhere in that planning overlay were the words 'artificial intelligence' or 'data centre' used. Yet that was the justification given for the lack of public scrutiny on this planning permission. CHAIR: So it hasn't been given final approval, but they've already started some of the works. That must be pretty frustrating as a local resident. Mx McKenzie Hocking : It feels like a fait accompli. It feels very much like a 'David versus Goliath' issue. This is estimated to be a $10 billion development, and the developer says it's a 488-megawatt capacity centre; it's essentially two data centres on one block of land. CHAIR: It's almost a quarter of what Australia's entire capacity is right now. Mx McKenzie Hocking : There are only two other data centres in the world, which I believe are both owned by Google, that are larger in capacity—that are both one-megawatt centres. This is the power generation of a small city in a community that has the second-largest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander number of residents and is expected to grow to 614,075 in population. It's the single-largest municipality in Victoria. CHAIR: Has construction started on the Port Melbourne data mining factories as yet? Dr Whitfield : They're clearing the land. They've largely cleared the site. CHAIR: Are you aware of how much of how much power those facilities are going to draw? Is your understanding that's it's coming directly out of the grid? Ms Parker : Yes. NEXTDC have said 150 megawatts, and there's no renewable energy noted in the planning application. CHAIR: So they're just plugging into the grid. Ms Parker : They're going to plug into the grid. We've been asked to mention the Spotswood Data Centre, which is only four kilometres from the Port Melbourne data centre across the river. That's even bigger. That's 260 megawatts. We believe that part of the reason they are insisting on building them in the inner city is that they get a good power supply and good, fast internet access for free. They don't have to build data cables going out into— CHAIR: Their own transmission. Ms Parker : They don't have to build their own transmission. We believe that they are plugging straight into the grid and drawing the equivalent of 150,000 homes worth of power from the grid. We've seen overseas what that does to people's energy costs. CHAIR: Is that the same for Clyde North as you understand it, this 400 just straight from the grid? Mx McKenzie Hocking : That's correct. The developer lists on their website helpfully as a way of assuaging concerns over impacts on power prices that the transmission lines are not residential transmission lines, as though that would have any material impact. When I asked the City of Casey what they expect the impacts to be on power prices given that if this was an aluminium smelter the power usage from the grid would by the law of supply and demand increase prices, the response I got was that it was an unsubstantiated allegation, which I think is a good description of neoliberal economics. CHAIR: I can tell you we've had plenty of experts from the energy sector submit to our inquiry who say that you're correct, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. What about water use? Where is the water being taken from for these facilities in your understanding? Ms Drapaniotis : For us, that's the thing. There is no transparency at all. It's so hard to find accurate information, and there are all sorts of different things that are being circulated. Initially it was that they were going to use evaporative cooling so it uses less water. Then I came to find out that actually evaporative cooling does use a lot of water. Then they said that they were going to use chillers and not water, but again there are no answers really to suggest how much water they actually will be using. I think it's really important for the companies to be transparent with facts and figures so that the community is properly informed. Ms Parker : On the NEXTDC website, it says that they're going to use some rainwater, harvested stormwater. But it's just from their own roof, which will not harvest much stormwater. They are promoting it as using recycled water, but when you look at the planning application there's a very small provision for recycled water. It's greenwashing of the highest degree from NEXTDC. CHAIR: Obviously, the community frustration is in your local areas. You're the residents living in these communities, so you're feeling this very directly and very personally. Are you frustrated that it is so fragmented? It seems as though there is no cumulative, overarching view of how all of these data centres are being built all at once, drawing from the grid and drawing from the water supply and of the amount of emissions being produced and the amount of diesel pollution when the diesel generators are even tested, let alone if indeed they're needed to run the facility if the grid goes down. Is that lack of overarching planning and oversight a big part of the problem here? Ms Drapaniotis : Absolutely. The issue is that we can focus on our own community and we can focus on the one that is being built across the road from our homes. However, in Campbellfield, we are going to be surrounded, and the west are going to be even more surrounded. We've got two in Craigieburn and a huge one in Donnybrook. Epping, Thomastown—they're not a part of Hume, but they're our neighbours. Tullamarine has two. Keilor, I've heard, is going to have four. We're literally all surrounded, and these areas are all within 10 kilometres of each other. When you think about the heat island effect and then of course the air pollutants, this is going to be circulating around our air in all of our neighbourhoods, so I think it's super important that we look at it. Yes, in our community groups, we focus on our own and try to oppose and object. But then if we can take a step back and look at the bigger picture and look at the cumulative impacts that this will have on all of our communities, I think it's very important. CHAIR: It does seem that a big part of the problem here is the lack of transparency of, really, what is being proposed. There isn't even one place to go to to say, 'Here in Melbourne, these are all the centres that are currently underway; this is how much energy they draw; this is their capacity; this is the purpose for them; this is the status by which they're up to.' Do you think that type of overall transparency would be a big start to dealing with a lot of the concerns and cynicism that the community has? Ms Drapaniotis : There's already a list that, I believe, has been created by communities, not by anybody else. You mentioned just before that the lack of transparency or the information that is missing is what they are going to be used for. What kind of data is going to be stored? I was told that government are running out of storage space for government data, and of course we don't want that kind of data being stored overseas. There are a lot of questions around that. CHAIR: Is it fair to say that big AI and data facilities simply don't have a social licence here? Unidentified speaker: Yes. CHAIR: I guess part of my cynicism of this is that I think we've already started to witness some of this from some of the data companies we've had in front of this committee. We've got another one today. There is a lack of understanding that you can't just buy social licence. You have to earn social licence, and without being transparent, without being a good neighbour and without being clear about what you are doing and why and what the impacts will be you'll never earn the social licence. You can try and buy it as much as you like, but these companies won't earn it by just inducements. Ms Parker : Absolutely. I would agree, but I would also say, if you want to earn social licence, you have to have a product that is safe for humans to live next to and you have to be pushing a technology that is safe for people to use. You have to be transparent about whether you're putting military or defence AI capabilities in a data centre in the centre of Melbourne, which would be a potential target if we get into a conflict. To be honest, even if the data centres were being more transparent about what they're doing, I can't imagine that anyone would still accept them in their neighbourhoods. Ms Drapaniotis : Especially if they are to be transparent. I think the more information we find out, the more horrified— CHAIR: I guess that's part of the reason why they've kept you in the dark, isn't it? Let's be honest. Ms Drapaniotis : Yes! CHAIR: Senator Hodgins-May. Senator HODGINS-MAY: Thank you, Chair, and I wholeheartedly agree around AI's social licence. This inquiry is taking place because it is government's role to ensure that they are held to the standards that they need to be held to. We know these tech giants aren't going to act in goodwill for the community's benefit. I'm quite familiar with Port Melbourne and the Fishermans Bend precinct, and I'm aware of an enormous amount of community activity fighting for more tram lines and more green space. Do you think there is any scenario where these data centres wouldn't be competing for scarce infrastructure capacity? Dr Whitfield : No. They are definitely going to be competing, and they are definitely going to increase costs locally. Senator HODGINS-MAY: Whilst we are trying to determine what the federal framework looks like to regulate these AI data centres, have the local member or the planning ministers or anyone given you any assurances about those risk assessments not having been undertaken about the potential fire risk or potential environmental impacts? Have they provided you with any assurances? Ms Parker : No. Nina Taylor was approached, and she said that the fire risk assessment has not been done or she has not had conversations with Fire Victoria about the fire risk of this development. Ms Drapaniotis : For Campbellfield, we know that the EPA has objected, mainly around noise and proximity to residential areas. We have been told that there is a process and that more reports need to be done. We did meet with Sonya Kilkenny. It was a closed meeting. It was arranged by Kathleen Matthews-Ward. We were unable to have many people rock up; we were quite limited in numbers. That opportunity, we felt, was great, because we thought: 'Okay, let's really take this opportunity and hope that maybe we can ask some questions. Maybe we can get some answers.' What we were given instead—which was great—was a space to voice our concerns directly to the minister, but there were no answers. There was nothing. In fact—and I hope you don't mind if I paraphrase here—the minister said that she believed people were angry because they had been left in the dark and because of everything we've been hearing about people going through this overseas. But people are actually going through it here, and our fears and our concerns are very real. Again, we felt that there were no answers and that we were brushed over and made to feel small. Senator HODGINS-MAY: Thank you. I think we're hitting morning tea, but I appreciate your activism and attendance today. CHAIR: Thank you, everybody. If there's anything that you need to correct or anything extra that you need to feed through, please be in contact with the secretariat. I appreciate your time and your evidence. Proceedings suspended from 11:04 to 11:20 .