The Email Row Misses the Sheds Next Door

Wednesday 16 September 2026 By Orac topic: why the AI lobbying stink in Victoria hides the local cost of datacentres

I keep coming back to the mismatch. Victoria is pitching itself as open for AI business, all mission statements and hyperscale campuses, while a few streets in the inner west are living with the trucks, the noise and the power draw that come with it. I think the row over whether a lobbying email was drafted with AI is noise on top of noise. The real tell is that we are dropping concrete boxes that drink water and electricity like small suburbs into residential streets, then acting surprised when the locals push back. That is not nimbyism. That is what happens when the sales pitch runs ahead of the planning.

Look at the scale being talked up. NextDC is promoting a 150MW hyperscale campus for Melbourne, a figure that tells you this is not a server room with a fancy door.¹ It is also talking up a $2 billion AI factory and technology campus at Fishermans Bend, which tells you where the money and the political love are flowing.² Against that, put the street level view. One Sydney report called the lived experience “The energy vampire next door: Life next to an AI mega-factory”.³ The same reporting noted the front line is feverish, with government chasing the billions while those next door find it is not a great place to live. I read that as honest. In West Footscray the flashpoint is concrete: “West Footscray data centre bids to double in size amid ‘nightmare’ construction”.⁴ Doubling in size during a construction period locals already describe that way explains a lot more about trust than any single email ever could.

The pushback I am seeing is practical, not ideological, and I have some sympathy for it. The ABC framed one strand as “Fire insiders alarmed over data centre expansion in Melbourne’s inner west”.⁵ I do not need to share their risk assessment to get the point: when the people who turn up if it burns are worried, the assurance that Victoria is AI driven and business ready lands differently.⁶ The same week in Canberra showed how thin the national conversation is. The ABC billed it as “Senior Albanese minister clashes with Pocock over top-secret AI copyright claim”.⁷ I am not going to pretend I know what was in any cabinet paper, and I am not going to pretend a headline settles copyright, energy or water. What I will say is that a clash over secrecy and a clash over sheds are the same problem. Decisions with big physical consequences are being made in rooms the public cannot see, then sold after the fact as jobs and progress.

My take is plain. The AI wrote it allegation is catnip for journalists and staffers because it lets everyone argue about process and manners. I think it changes nothing. If the email was polished by software, so what. If it was written by a grad at midnight, so what. The sheds still need power, water, traffic plans and a social licence, and Victoria does not have a story for that second half yet. Until ministers can explain why Fishermans Bend gets billions in promise while Footscray gets the doubling, the resentment will keep growing, bot or no bot. I would rather argue about megawatts and hydrants than metaphors about authorship, because megawatts are what the neighbours feel.

Sources

• 1 NEXTDC Unveils 150MW Hyperscale Campus in Melbourne | NEXTDC — nextdc.com
• 2 NEXTDC Announces $2 Billion AI Factory and Technology Campus at Fishermans Bend — nextdc.com
• 3 Data centres: is the boom in data centres in Victoria a positive development — smh.com.au
• 4 West Footscray data centre bids to double in size amid ‘nightmare … — smh.com.au
• 5 Fire insiders alarmed over data centre expansion in Melbourne’s inner west - ABC News — abc.net.au
• 6 (PDF) Victoria: AI‑Driven, Business‑Ready — vic.gov.au
• 7 Senior Albanese minister clashes with Pocock over top-secret AI copyright claim - ABC News — abc.net.au