Written By:
- Date published:
10:00 am, July 27th, 2026 - 12 comments
Categories: Chlöe Swarbrick, Chlöe Swarbrick, election 2026, greens, marama davidson -
Tags: AI, AI data centres, Green Party AGM
Chloe Swarbrick and Marama Davidson’s speeches to the Green Party AGM on the weekend.
Transcripts of both are here.
Key policy announcement of a 1 year moratorium on new AI Data Centres, to give New Zealand time for a public discussion on what we want here and how.
The Green Party is calling for a one-year moratorium on new AI data centres while proper rules are put in place to ensure they genuinely benefit New Zealanders and are not straining our resources.
“Right now, AI data centres can be consented behind closed doors, with no community input. Experience overseas has seen these projects turn local water supply to sludge and suck huge amounts of energy, driving up prices for regular people,” says Green Party Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.
“If we are going to let these things be built, we should at least understand who is benefitting and ensure we protect our natural resources and communities. That’s why the Greens are calling for a one-year pause, to allow intentional regulation to be developed.”
“Some may argue these AI data centres could build their own renewable energy, or that they’re increasingly using closed-loop water cooling systems. That may well be the case, but our current rules don’t require any of those things. New Zealanders haven’t even had the opportunity to discuss and decide whether they want them.”
Swarbrick also faced down a tough Tova O’Brien on Q & A on the AI data centre policy.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/06/sustainable-data-centre-heating/
Heat from data centers needs to be used to supply heating to schools ,councils and possibly sold to companies
If data centres partnered with greenhouse food producers, the heat produced by the former could "feed" the latter and multiply their efficiency/productivity. Heated tunnel/glasshouses in Southland could be a major aspect of food production there, winter and summer. The management of the "grow-houses" could be assigned to the AI facilitated by the "centres" and maximum efficiency/productivity required as part of the social contract between the AI guys and the Community.
Chloe is impressive. Her clarity and ability to reduce complex issues to every day impacts is gold. Her human spoke to my human. This is definitely the country I want.
Labour is falling in the polls because they are invisible on these issues. imo.
Agree Patricia.
At least Hipkins could have immediately come in with support for the Greens clever data centre policy, but he can't even do that.
"Labour is falling in the polls because they are invisible on these issues. imo."
Hear hear.
The time is approaching where 'strategic voting' pressure comes to bear. Somehow, some of us are expected to hold our nose and vote for those that we would rather not vote for.
For me, Labour being wedded to neo-liberal orthodoxy, is no longer worthy of my vote. Local candidate or party vote. If Labour are to change, they will not do it if I vote for them on a hope of keeping a worse neo-liberal party out of power. They might if enough of us vote to the left/progressive/worker focussed of them.
Alliance is running a candidate here in the Rangitikei and the leader is a good union (MUNZ) man, a good communicator.
Agree, gsays. I intend to vote party vote Green and for the Labour rep here Fisher Wang, currently on our Rotorua Council.
You and me both Patricia. Hopefully we can get Todd out. If you want to talk to someone about it, my mother is on the Rotorua LEC. I can put you in touch.
Thanks Gareth. I am limited to giving funds as I broke my ankle badly last Oct. Although I am up and about on a walker at near 85 it is a struggle, and support here and for Nick Rockel is my usual. The Greens are fund raising for $19000 so I have contributed., but do a fortnightly support for Labour. We have to remove this lot!! my number is 073479029, as we are happy to have a billboard for Fisher on a corner section.
Dr. Ehrlich Spiegel who just commented on the Southland data centre on RNZ's The Panel pretty much destroyed the while process. He says there is no plan to produce enough power for this and the other data centres planned.
Another thing he said was that a data cable is being developed between Southland and Australia. So it could be that Australians will be using the Southland data centre more than Kiwis.
Well worth a listen….he makes a comment at the end as well as a long initial comment.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/thepanel
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/thepanel/audio/2019045089/the-panel-with-mary-lambie-and-michael-moynahan-part-1
One thing I am curious about is Southland's vulnerability regarding power supply (bit outages in that storm). Will the data centre be prioritised? Have its own generators?
My understanding is there are no conditions at all in the decision to grant consent in regard to power. The applicant pulled the wool over the commissioner's eyes with blather about how they would use NZ's plentiful renewable power.
Complete rubbish of course. Firstly we do not have spare renewables to power something that requires the power of a small city, and secondly, even if we did have such spare power why would we use to on something that creates only 200 jobs (others were saying only 50 yesterday) when there are other more job-rich industries or residences that could use that power.