Australia’s world-first data centre rules need every state to agree. Two just said no.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s proposed national environmental and energy controls for the country’s A$150 billion data centre pipeline hit their first obstacle on Tuesday, when two jurisdictions declined to back them. Federal, state and territory energy ministers met virtually to discuss the plan, and Queensland and the Northern Territory opposed most of the measures, including the idea of a national rulebook at all.

The structural problem is that the policy requires unanimity. Every state and territory must support the federal framework for it to proceed, which gives any single jurisdiction an effective veto.

What the rules would require

New data centres would have to add at least as much electricity generation to the grid as they consume, a requirement Albanese set out in a policy speech earlier in July. He described bringing these issues into a single national framework as a global first.

Operators would also be expected...

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