Premier David Crisafulli has emerged victorious from national cabinet, securing an exemption to enable Queensland to power data centres with coal and gas, following a heated weeks-long scrap with the federal government.
Heading into the meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other state and territory leaders, Queensland and the Northern Territory refused to fall into line on federal Labor’s demands to force AI data centres to be exclusively fuelled by new renewable energy sources.
Queensland, led by an LNP government that has pushed back its forced closure of coal-powered generators, said limiting the source of power would risk sending investment in data centres offshore.
Crisafulli argued during national cabinet that Queensland’s power network was unique in that the state owned its power generators.
“We’ve got a really big point of difference [to other states], and that is we own distribution, transmission and generation, and that enables us to control that energy mix,” the premier told reporters after the meeting.
“We believe that we can control our data sovereignty, protect the rights of local communities, and enable that energy mix to bring those data centres on.”
Albanese conceded national cabinet relented to Queensland and the NT, where the publicly owned generators would enable data centres to be powered with fossil fuels “if there is surplus”.
The conciliatory post-meeting comments were in stark contrast to the heated back-and-forth over the past few weeks, with federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen using his National Press Club speech to stare down Queensland and the NT.
He said the Albanese government would use federal powers to force the two jurisdictions to fall into line and fully offset their centres’ electricity use with investments in renewable energy.
“While I always prefer to work with my state and territory colleagues, the Commonwealth will not be standing by and letting a race to the bottom of states falling over themselves to attract data centres at the cost to household bills, reliability or emissions,” Bowen said during the address this month.
“We will use all the powers available to the Commonwealth, including Commonwealth legislation, to ensure that Australian households and Australian energy reliability is put first – even if some states have different ideas.”
But Crisafulli dismissed Bowen’s threats, saying as recently as Monday that his position “smacks of ideology”.
“I’ve seen some comments from Minister Bowen. I do disagree with them,” he said.
“I don’t believe they’re based on any form of logic, to say they have to be one form of energy or another.
“That, to me, is ideology. We’re about economics and being practical. And the truth is, if you get that energy mix right, you can actually complement and bring on opportunities like gas peakers.
“We believe that renewable energy is part of that mix. So too is some of our coal-fired power stations.”
Albanese told reporters on Wednesday he understood “different states have different issues”, and the concession will now lead to federal laws being passed in coming months.
“There is agreement across the board that we need to ensure that the social licence [to build data centres] has occurred,” he said.
“The Commonwealth will legislate, and we have the power to do so, and I’m very confident we will move forward with every single jurisdiction making a difference. We want to make sure that in attracting investment, we don’t have eight different systems operating around the country.”
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James Hall is the News Director at the Brisbane Times. He is the former Queensland correspondent at The Australian Financial Review and has reported for a range of mastheads across the country, specialising on political and finance reporting.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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