Australia’s struggle to define its sovereign digital future is increasingly playing out at the state level with an ongoing NSW parliamentary inquiry into data centres.
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The Justice and Equity Centre program director of energy and water justice Douglas McCloskey said the current market frameworks only focused on a narrow assessment of potential dollars, investment or jobs created.
“Frameworks governing the development and operation of data centres must be capable of preventing and mitigating risks and impacts on the community and ensuring strong net benefit to the community from the development of data centres,” he told the inquiry.
“It means assessing impact on energy and water system efficiency and security, the community and the environment. It means having robust frameworks in place to ensure data centres only proceed where they are designed to operate to high standards of efficiency, support, and are powered by renewable energy and utilise recycled water.”
