On 14 June 2025, Anthony Albanese stood inside an infinite sphere of glass and metal, surrounded by 40,000 crops from world wide. His thoughts was firmly fastened on datacentres. The prime minister was within the Seattle headquarters of Amazon Net Providers. He stood alongside the corporate’s chief government, Matt Garman, who outlined a $20bn plan to construct datacentres in Melbourne and Sydney.
Talking to a travelling press pack, Garman was emphatic that Australia was “extremely vital and an amazing market” for the world’s largest datacentre firm.
Inside days of Albanese returning house, Amazon reported its largest fee to an Australian political social gathering on document. The corporate’s federal disclosures present a $46,500 fee to the Labor social gathering’s federal department on 28 June.
This was one in every of 34 funds – totalling $538,000 – that Amazon made to Labor and Liberal branches over a six-year interval.
Whereas the cash didn’t affect the federal government’s determination making, it continued a pattern of Amazon disclosing funds shortly earlier than or after multibillion-dollar bulletins.
Funds resembling this are authorized. However as governments face group backlash for fast-tracking datacentres, these monetary contributions are going through renewed scrutiny.
So, too, are the well-connected political operatives, from former coverage advisers to not less than one former premier, who’ve been paid to foyer governments on behalf of datacentre firms.
Transparency Worldwide Australia’s chief government, Clancy Moore, says a cutting-edge business is counting on previous strategies.
“Datacentres are the brand new extractive industries however [are] utilizing the previous methods of money for entry funds and full scale lobbying to affect our political system,” Moore says.
Entry to ministers
In 2024 the Albanese authorities introduced a $2bn cope with Amazon Net Providers to construct three top-secret datacentres to retailer delicate info gathered by intelligence companies.
Eight days earlier than that deal was introduced, on 26 June, Amazon disclosed a $33,000 fee to Labor, in accordance with Australian Electoral Fee filings. Lower than six weeks later, one other $33,000 fee was disclosed.
The funds have been membership charges for the social gathering’s fundraising automobile, the Labor Enterprise Discussion board, which facilitates entry to ministers and MPs. Amazon has paid greater than $200,000 in membership charges to the discussion board since mid-2021.
Below Australian electoral regulation, such membership or subscription charges to political fundraising automobiles should not technically classed as donations. As an alternative, they’re listed as “different receipts”. However finally, the cash goes to the identical place: the social gathering.
The proximity of those funds to main offers, whereas coincidental, highlights ongoing issues about firms paying political events for added entry to determination makers.
Amazon has additionally been busy attending state fundraising occasions.
Between mid-2021 and mid-2025, Amazon paid $38,100 to the New South Wales Labor social gathering and $37,400 to the Liberals. Throughout this era, the corporate was additionally pursuing a number of new datacentres on Sydney’s outskirts.
An Amazon spokesperson mentioned its funds to fundraising boards weren’t associated to public investments, together with datacentre initiatives.
The federal authorities and the ALP nationwide secretariat have been contacted for remark.
Funds to NSW Liberals
In his remaining weeks as prime minister in 2022, Scott Morrison toured a brand new five-storey datacentre in Sydney’s north-west. After reducing a blue ribbon to declare the power open, Morrison praised his hosts for maintaining Australia on the “vanguard” of the digital economic system.
Three days earlier than Morrison’s 25 March speech, Macquarie Expertise Group disclosed a $3,000 donation to the NSW Liberal social gathering. This got here shortly after two separate funds from the ASX-listed firm to the identical department value $15,000 in January 2022.
The corporate had been sending a gentle stream of cash to the NSW Liberal department because the IC3 East datacentre was being constructed within the Macquarie Park innovation district. The cash was additionally flowing because it plotted one other bigger adjoining datacentre, referred to as IC3 Tremendous West.
Australian Electoral Fee disclosures present Macquarie made six funds to the state Liberals value $10,700 between 12 November 2020, and seven June 2021. NSW disclosures present the corporate additionally paid the department $1,500 to attend a boardroom lunch with then Liberal treasurer, Dominic Perrotett, on 15 June 2021.
Whereas there isn’t any suggestion these funds sought to affect planning choices or had any influence on purposes, they overlap with milestones for the corporate.
On 15 July, Macquarie informed buyers about its plans for IC3 Tremendous West, which may very well be fast-tracked by new guidelines deeming datacentre’s “state important developments” that may very well be accepted by a minister, somewhat than a neighborhood council.
Authorities paperwork present a planning utility was underneath method by early August with a sustainability and emissions report accomplished on 26 October.
Three days earlier, on 23 October, the corporate paid $1,980 to safe a lunch assembly with Ryde’s Labor mayor, Jerome Laxale, and the then Labor chief, Chris Minns, at a Parramatta restaurant.
Laxale had no position in assessing the appliance, because it was earlier than the state authorities. On the time, he was getting ready for council elections on 4 December. In 2022, he stepped down after successful the federal seat of Bennelong.
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A spokesperson for Laxale mentioned “all donations have been reported in accordance with necessities”.
The Metropolis of Ryde has now grow to be a strident critic of datacentres, regardless of having 12 current or proposed amenities inside its boundaries. It informed a parliamentary inquiry in March this 12 months that it was “deeply involved” a couple of “speedy focus” inserting “important strain” on electrical energy and water provides.
In keeping with the AEC, Macquarie has paid $2.2m to state and federal branches of the Liberal and Labor events since 2000.
An organization spokesperson mentioned “any suggestion that these actions affect planning outcomes is wrong”.
“Macquarie Expertise Group engages with federal, state, and native representatives from throughout the political spectrum by means of enterprise boards, business occasions and stakeholder engagement actions.
“[The group] complies with all state and federal electoral disclosure necessities and doesn’t present political help in change for planning approvals, authorities choices, or coverage outcomes.”
A NSW Liberal spokesperson mentioned the social gathering disclosed all donations according to its obligations.
Former LNP premier employed, $20,000 donated
Datacentre firms are more and more turning to well-connected lobbyists to additional their business pursuits.
Viridis Inexperienced datacentres, which is proposing quite a lot of small datacentres in regional areas, is amongst them.
The corporate has paid former Queensland Nationwide premier Rob Borbidge to foyer Liberal Nationwide social gathering ministers and senior public servants on its behalf.
Lobbying data present that, in late August, Borbidge gave two of the state’s most senior planning officers a tour of a Brisbane datacentre constructed by the corporate.
This adopted 4 conferences with public servants since March, together with one organized after discussions with a minister’s workplace.
Borbidge’s engagement got here after Viridis made a $20,000 donation to the Queensland LNP on 20 October 2025. Sources acquainted with the fee say it funded an occasion on the LNP social gathering convention on the Gold Coast in November.
Viridis was contacted for remark.
‘Reputable query to be answered’
Abigail Boyd, the higher home Greens MP main a NSW parliamentary inquiry into datacentres, questioned why firms would pay political events in the event that they didn’t count on a return.
“Multi-billion greenback firms don’t make donations to main political events for enjoyable; they do it to amass entry, affect and good favour,” Boyd says.
The unbiased Australian Capital Territory senator David Pocock, a member of a federal inquiry into datacentres, says he’s involved about know-how firms bankrolling election campaigns.
“We’ve seen huge tech pour big cash into political donations forward of the US midterm elections,” he says. “Whereas at a smaller scale and in several methods, I’m involved the identical sample is enjoying out right here.”
The Centre for Public Integrity’s government director, Catherine Williams, says an absence of transparency about federal lobbying exercise “heightens group concern” about funds to political events.
“There’s a reliable query to be answered in regards to the goal of any entity paying for social gathering discussion board membership, or to attend political social gathering/candidate occasions, if it’s not to acquire entry and affect that’s past the attain of unusual Australians,” Williams mentioned.
