Family First calls for mandatory community consultation and a state-wide planning framework before approvals accelerate.
Families in West Footscray lie awake at night to a constant industrial hum that never stops. Parents 300 metres from Melbourne’s largest data centre worry about what diesel generator exhaust is doing to their children’s developing lungs. In Geelong, land earmarked for more than 2,000 homes has been snapped up by a tech giant — and no political party has said a word.
Family First candidates Jane Foreman, Dianne Colbert and Matt Emerson are today calling out the bipartisan silence on Victoria’s unplanned data centre boom and demanding real protections for communities before another approval is waved through
“This is what happens when governments put corporate interests ahead of families,” said Mrs Foreman.
“Residents in West Footscray were never properly consulted before NextDC’s M3 facility was built right next to their homes — just 14 metres from picket fences, 500 metres from a kindergarten and a maternal health centre. Now the company wants to double its footprint again. Labor and the Liberals have nothing to say. Family First does,” said Matt Emerson.
The M3 data centre, marketed as ‘Australia’s largest hyperscale AI factory’, sits in a mixed residential and industrial area of West Footscray less than 10km from the Melbourne CBD. Diesel generators on site are reportedly set to expand from 40 to 100 units. The local government area already records childhood asthma rates more than 50 per cent above the state average, and community air quality sensors recorded fine particulate concentrations at three times the WHO’s 24-hour guideline as recently as 2025.
Maribyrnong Council has formally objected to the expansion. Residents have launched a Change.org petition calling on Planning Minister Sonia Kilkenny to intervene. The minister’s office has said only that the application “would be considered on its merits.”
Meanwhile, in Geelong, more than 2,000 planned homes have been put at risk.
NextDC recently acquired 169 hectares of farmland at Lovely Banks — a northern growth corridor suburb of Geelong — for a reported $165 million. The site sits within an area that had been planned for residential development. The City of Greater Geelong’s chief executive has called for a coordinated, state-led approach to data centre planning to protect residential outcomes. No state government response has been forthcoming.
“The Allan Government approved NextDC’s West Footscray planning permit in 75 days,” said Ms Colbert. “Seventy-five days to change a neighbourhood forever, with no meaningful consultation. These are families’ lives, not just planning boxes to tick. And with more data centres undoubtedly on the drawing board for sites all over Melbourne, including Geelong, the window to act is closing fast.”
Industry figures add further scale to the problem. The Victorian Farmers Federation estimates data centres proposed for Victoria will demand nine gigawatts of electricity — equivalent to four Loy Yang A power stations — and consume approximately 20 gigalitres of water annually from Melbourne’s west alone.
Family First is calling on the Victorian Government to:
- Impose an immediate moratorium on data centre planning approvals near residential areas until a comprehensive state-wide framework is in place.
- Require mandatory, genuine community consultation before any data centre permit is issued within 1km of a residential zone.
- Conduct independent cumulative health and environmental impact assessments for existing facilities including M3 at West Footscray.
- Protect housing supply commitments in Geelong’s growth corridors from rezoning for industrial data infrastructure.
“Victoria needs digital infrastructure — nobody is disputing that,” said Ms Foreman. “But that infrastructure should not be built on the health and wellbeing of working families who had no say in the matter. Every other party is silent because they don’t want to offend the tech sector. Family First will stand up for the families whose voices are being drowned out by an industrial hum that never stops.”.”
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