The Green Party is calling for a one-year pause on consenting for new AI data centres, arguing that New Zealanders have not had the opportunity to discuss and decide whether they want them. The policy, launched alongside the party's official campaign slogan 'For all of us' at the Green Party AGM, takes direct aim at the consented Data Grid hyperscale facility in Makarewa, just north of Invercargill — a $3.5 billion development that would become the second-largest electricity user in New Zealand once operational (RNZ).

Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick, the party's spokesperson on the issue, said the Data Grid centre was "consented behind closed doors" and represents about 6% of New Zealand's current electricity production — equivalent, she said, to a town the size of Hamilton coming online overnight. The facility, spanning 49 hectares, has a capacity of 280 MW and permission to draw more than 600,000 litres of groundwater each day (RNZ; Datagrid; Venture Insights).

Swarbrick warned the data centre will drive up the cost of electricity for every other New Zealander and risk displacing costs onto other industries, potentially costing jobs. She also pointed to overseas experience showing impacts on local water supplies, including fresh water turning into sludge or sedimentary water (RNZ).

Data Grid has pushed back on the water concerns, saying the water used to cool computers will be "closed loop" and will not contaminate anything. The company said 1,200 jobs would be created during construction (RNZ).

Gentailier Mercury has invested $53 million into Data Grid. Mercury CEO Stu Hamilton said the data centre would support up to 300 jobs once built, "multiplied by the jobs that will be used to construct the power stations necessary for the electricity" (RNZ).

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon dismissed the Greens' position as "alarmist." Swarbrick countered that Luxon "agreed with all of the things that we were saying about the impacts on communities, on energy, and on the local water supply" but is not willing to introduce regulation (RNZ).

The Greens' press release noted that Swarbrick also feared changes to the law will make it easier for future data centres to get approval. The party reiterated its call for a one-year moratorium in a separate press release about a bill to protect artists against outdated copyright laws that passed its first reading (Greens; Greens).

Beyond Makarewa, the plans have drawn concern from locals about potential noise (The Guardian).

The policy standoff sits against a backdrop of growing commercial interest in Aotearoa as a data centre destination. A 2026 Boston Consulting Group report examined the potential economic impact of data centres in New Zealand, including jobs, a new export industry, and spillover benefits (BCG). The OECD's 2026 Economic Survey of New Zealand found the economy has entered the early stages of a cyclical recovery, supported by easing monetary policy, resilient exports, and a rebound in tourism (OECD).

The political fault lines are familiar ones in New Zealand resource management debates: rapid consenting versus deliberative process, regional jobs versus national energy and water security, and private capital moving faster than regulatory frameworks. What makes this contest distinct is the scale of a single facility relative to the national grid — a single hyperscale consumer drawing 6% of current electricity production is not a marginal load, and the counter-argument that demand will drive new generation capacity carries its own risk for an electricity market already under supply pressure.

The further question is legislative. If changes to resource management or fast-track consenting processes do make approval easier for future data centres, the Greens' moratorium proposal would require either Government buy-in or a select committee mechanism to have practical effect. With Luxon publicly framing the party's stance as alarmist, that buy-in appears unlikely in the current term. The Greens' strategy, then, is less about immediate legislative change and more about staking out a public position before further consents accumulate — using the Data Grid case as the concrete example of what an unregulated pipeline of hyperscale demand could mean for electricity prices, water resources, and competing industrial users.