Today in Parliament, Abigail challenged the NSW Government in Question Time and a Take Note debate over its refusal to submit evidence to or appear before the parliamentary inquiry into data centres that she is Chairing, despite earlier commitments to participate, leaving the committee without critical government data on how the rapid expansion of nearly 100 data centres across NSW will impact water supply, energy use and climate targets.

Abigail said:

My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Water and Minister for Housing. During budget estimates on 4 March 2026, in response to my questions about data centres and the questions our inquiry would be considering regarding some of the concerns being raised about the pace and scale of data centre development, the Minister informed the committee:

We are participating in the development of government submissions to your inquiry.

No Government submission has since eventuated, not even from Sydney Water. What has happened?

The Hon. ROSE JACKSON (Minister for Water, Minister for Housing): I thank the member for her question. The Government has made a full public release of a consultation paper. It is a principles document that sets out our approach to the issues referred to by the member, and our dialogue at budget estimates and publicly about the Government's approach to data centres. That document is now in the public domain. If the committee needs me to forward the email of that publicly available document to its inbox, I am happy to do that.

The Government has been clear about its position. We welcome the committee taking on board that feedback in the development of its recommendations and findings, and we look forward to those recommendations and findings. We have been engaging with the sector to inform a whole-of-government position on data centre principles and frameworks. We have been engaging in the development of work within the Water portfolio. I thank the Treasurer and Infrastructure NSW for leading that work. As I said, that information is available in the public domain. We welcome consideration of it.

This process is under active consideration by the Government. We will be informed by feedback that we receive, including findings and recommendations from the parliamentary inquiry. It is not accurate to say that there are no government views in the public domain informing the community about the principles we bring to the conversation. That information has been released and is publicly available. It is informed by principles of the Water portfolio, the Energy portfolio and others. If the committee is not aware of that document, I am happy to bring it to its attention now. I am certain we can deliver that information to the committee if it would like to consider it.

To which Abigail replied:

Unfortunately, that did not answer the question about why the Minister said that she was contributing to a government submission to the inquiry when no government submission has been received. I note the release of the Government's plan to have a plan on data centres. But a set of questions being posed to the public is not the same as a position. I also note that the terms of reference for the inquiry are incredibly detailed, including threshold questions about how many data centres we should have, where they should be located and a bunch of other things. Those items were not covered in the Government's plan to have a plan document. The committee has seen the document and does not need it to be sent to its inbox. The committee needs the Government to answer questions like why it estimates Sydney water use to be at 25 per cent by 2035 but Data Centres Australia estimates it to be 1.9 per cent. I ask the Government to please participate in the inquiry.

After Question Time, Abigail contributed to a Take Note debate in response to the Minister's answer:

I take note of the answer given by the Minister for Water about the data centre inquiry. The data centre inquiry was set up as the first of its kind in Australia, as people were beginning to understand that there are many data centres. There are now almost 100 in New South Wales, with many more planned. These large, hyper-scale facilities are being proposed across the State, with little understanding or consultation with the community. It became clear from budget estimates hearings that the Government had no plan for these things developing, particularly how much water they would take. We heard alarming statistics coming from Sydney Water and others about the amount of water and energy these things would drain. In that context, we established the inquiry, with a long lead time for submissions to be put in.

In the last six weeks we have experienced a complete reversal of the Government's previous stated intentions of participating in the inquiry. It is quite extraordinary that we have received no submission in relation to data centres from any government department. As the Minister pointed out, the Government has released its consultation paper on what a plan may look like. That is not the same as giving us detailed data about what already exists or what their current trajectory looks like in terms of what they think the impact on our water and our energy will be, as well as our climate targets. These are all incredibly valid things for us to ask about. But we are completely flat-footed now, because we have the head of Data Centres Australia telling us that, in their view, the amount of water anticipated to be used is a tenth of what Sydney Water is saying and we do not have any Government submission to rely on.

We have called the Ministers, including the Minister for Water, to appear. They have all declined. We have not even had a submission from Sydney Water. On top of that, we have what looks to be a little bit of a collusion of silence from the industry, whose representatives are saying that none of them will turn up because they will all rely on this newly established lobbying body, Data Centres Australia, to do their talking for them, despite them not having the level of detailed knowledge in relation to those projects. And now all of the big businesses are standing behind the Business Council. It is very confounding. It does look like a conspiracy of silence. We encourage the Government to participate in the inquiry.

Read the full transcript in Hansard here and here.

5 May 2026