Submitted to the Environment and Communications References Committee Secretary – Australian Government on 1st September 2026.

AFSA thanks the Australian Government for the opportunity to provide this submission to the inquiry on Artificial Intelligence and Data Centres. As a farmer- and First Peoples-led organisation, AFSA represents over 400 small-scale food producers and allies who are fighting for social and ecological justice for people, animals and ecosystems. 

Techno‑optimism obscures the reality that technology is not neutral; it is shaped by power and reinforces existing inequalities.

This submission calls for adherence to the precautionary principle, rejecting technologies that put “profits before planet and people,” and advocating for technology justice: where control, decision‑making, privacy and autonomy remain with First Peoples, smallholders and local communities. 

The central question is not whether technology is inherently good or bad. It is who controls it, who profits from it, whose knowledge and labour it uses, and what forms of life and production it displaces. A just approach to technology must centre people affected by the technology in any decision making process, ensuring strong data sovereignty protections and governance frameworks that prevent corporate capture.

Potential impacts of AI and data centres: 

1. Fast-tracked approvals are reckless without adequate oversight
2. Loss of agricultural land and food security
3. Energy demand and electricity prices: AI threatens Australia’s energy transition
4. Water use, heat and chemical pollution
5. Over-investment in technological optimism and financial fragility risks turning the boom into a bust
6. Country treated as an empty development zone
7. Labour treated as an externality
8. Communities denied meaningful democratic choice
9. No serious test of whether the infrastructure is necessary

Recommendations:

1. Establish a moratorium before further damage is locked in
2. Enforce a farmland protection rule
3. Make corporations pay the full energy cost
4. Prohibit new fossil-fuelled power for data centres
5. Establish binding water and pollution limits
6. Require whole-of-life climate assessments
7. Guarantee Indigenous authority over impacts on Country
8. Give communities the power to refuse harmful projects
9. Reject public subsidies without public control and benefit
10. Protect workers and distribute productivity gains
11. Support appropriate, decentralised alternatives
12. Apply a public-interest and necessity test

Read the full submission here.