We need data centres, but only the good ones

When a new data centre is announced, the reaction is often familiar. Too much power. Too much water. Too little back for the community.

The root of that anger is understandable and fair.

Based on experience from the US many data centres have not been good neighbours - they arrive, they take, and the local community is expected to wear the cost.

But there is also an uncomfortable truth. We all used a data centre before breakfast today.

Checked a bank balance? Data centre. Used AI for education? Data centre. Streamed the news, ordered the groceries or accessed Medicare? Data centre, data centre, data centre.

These facilities have been part of the plumbing of modern life for decades, and the question has always been do we host them here, or rent from abroad?

Because if we don't build them here, we don't stop using them. Data centres simply land elsewhere - in places like Singapore, Tokyo and Virginia instead of Australia.

Imagine if our banks, our hospitals and our government systems all depended on computers sitting in another country. All our data, offshored to the lowest bidder. Most Australians would rightly ask: why are we trusting someone else with something so important? That's not independence. That's dependence.

And the cost isn't only security and control - it's electricians, apprentices, research scientists, engineers, and billions of dollars of investment and revenue.

The reality is Australia needs data centres, but Australians don't need bad neighbours.

A bad data centre guzzles water in a drought-prone country and gives nothing back. A bad data centre plugs into the grid, drives up power bills for the family next door, and contributes nothing to new supply. A bad data centre lands in a suburb with no local benefit, no local respect.

The answer isn't to ban all data centres. It's to reject the ones that don't give anything back.

That is what the Prime Minister's new Australian Standards for AI data centres will do. It's simple: if you want to build here, make our economy and society stronger.

The rules are clear - add to our energy supply, don't drain it. Strengthen the grid, don't weaken it. Use water responsibly and offset your impact. Hire and train Australians. Contribute to our science and research. Be part of the community, not a stranger behind a fence.

Good operators will clear that bar. Plenty already do. The ones who can't were never going to make our society more prosperous anyway.

The data centre boom has potential to be bigger than the mining boom, and we did not build a prosperous nation by turning away new sources of growth. We built it by embracing opportunity, setting the rules and ensuring Australians shared in the benefits.

That was true for mining. It was true for agriculture. And it should be true for the essential infrastructure of the digital age.

Set the rules. Build the good ones. Reject the bad ones.

Secure the benefits - on Australia's terms. That's the Albanese Government's approach.