There is an important dimension largely absent from NSW's current proposals for data centre electricity connection and cost recovery, being the rights, interests, cultural and Country responsibilities, and economic opportunities of First Nations people. 

On the proposed reforms, the Network broadly supports their direction.

However, there is an important dimension largely absent from the current proposals, being the rights, interests, cultural and Country responsibilities, and economic opportunities of First Nations people. 

Data centres should not be considered only as buildings connected to an electricity network. Their impacts extend across the infrastructure systems required to service them: renewable generation and storage, transmission and distribution infrastructure, water, land and associated infrastructure. 

This infrastructure will be developed on First Nations Country, including in areas where First Nations people hold legally recognised rights and interests, and much of the associated generation, storage and transmission infrastructure is likely to be located in regional NSW. 

The Network therefore recommends that NSW apply the same system-wide approach it is adopting to electricity infrastructure to First Nations rights, interests and economic participation. 

This should have two complementary objectives. 

First, data centre development must respect First Nations self-determination and ensure that Traditional Owners have genuine choice and agency over development affecting their Country, culture, heritage, water and environment, including through processes consistent with FPIC. 

Second, the extraordinary investment in new electricity supply driven by data centres should be deliberately used to create opportunities for First Nations ownership and economic participation, including by creating demand for First Nations-owned clean energy. 

Recommendations 

1. Recognise the whole infrastructure footprint of data centres, including generation, storage, transmission, distribution and water infrastructure, when considering First Nations rights, interests, impacts and opportunities. 
2. Embed First Nations self-determination, choice, agency and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) into relevant data centre planning, network access and associated infrastructure processes, with engagement occurring while material decisions about location, scale, design and conditions remain open. 
3. Apply established First Nations best-practice principles and leading-practice guidance to data centre development and associated infrastructure, rather than developing a weaker or separate standard for data centres. 
4. Require and resource meaningful First Nations participation. data centre proponents should provide appropriate resources to affected First Nations communities and groups to participate throughout project development, assessment and implementation, including funding for independent legal, technical, commercial, cultural heritage and other advice where required. Engagement timeframes should accommodate First Nations governance and decision-making processes rather than being dictated solely by proponents' development schedules. 
5. Require responsible and transparent water use. data centre proponents should be required to disclose and minimise water consumption, identify the source and infrastructure required to supply water, and assess cumulative impacts on water systems and First Nations Country, rights and cultural values. Affected First Nations people should be engaged and appropriately resourced to participate in decisions about water use and associated infrastructure. 
6. Establish a First Nations clean-energy procurement requirement within requirements for data centres to procure additional renewable energy and firming, initially through an obligation to identify and genuinely test opportunities to procure from, contract with or invest in First Nations-owned and controlled projects. 
7. Develop measurable First Nations procurement and ownership targets for data centre energy procurement as the First Nations clean-energy project pipeline develops. 
8. Include First Nations outcomes as explicit merit criteria in any large load access scheme, including First Nations clean-energy procurement, ownership and equity, protection of Country and culture, First Nations business procurement, employment and training, and benefit sharing. 
9. Require transparent reporting of First Nations outcomes associated with major data centre developments and the energy infrastructure that services them. 
10. Engage and appropriately resource First Nations organisations to participate in developing the proposed large load access scheme and subsequent data centre regulatory reforms. 

Read our submission

The clean energy transition must be a vehicle for First Nations justice, enduring cultural protection, and real economic participation — not a repeat of earlier patterns of dispossession. 

The Network supports recognising First Nations outcomes through optional attributes on renewable electricity Guarantee of Origin certificates. However, Free, Prior and Informed Consent must be embedded as a core policy principle and a condition of access to government programs.

Exploring the impacts of offshore development on First Nations’ cultural heritage, this article proposes integration of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), into the regulatory and legislative offshore environment.

In the Australian context, this particularly regards administrative and regulatory reforms to overcome uncertainty arising from recent decisions in the Federal Court.

The international focus on new energy has fast-tracked many processes that sideline First Nations’ rights, hitherto understood within the onshore minerals extraction regimes.

The reforms proposed in this article recognise an international commitment to enact the principles contained in the UNDRIP and other relevant international law.

Authors: Hoskins, R.; Ogilvie, G.; Storey, M.; Hill, A. Why Are Cultural Rights over Sea Country Less Recognised than Terrestrial Ones? Heritage 2025, 8, 283. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/heritage8070283

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Thanks for use of the photo by Maël BALLAND on Unsplash

First Nations rights, interests and priorities, including Free Prior and Informed Consent, must be incorporated as core components of the government’s Guarantee of Origin Scheme framework. 

New research confirms First Nations people in Australia have the legal ability to veto clean energy projects on Country.

The clean energy transition has the potential to be very beneficial for the Australian First Nations people on whose Country much of it will occur.

This paper documents results of interviews with legal and financial experts who have very particular insight into the contents of benefits agreements currently being negotiated with First Nations groups for large scale clean energy developments – agreements which are conventionally confidential.

The results of our analysis give reason for cautious optimism in this space, confirming that First Nations people in Australia have the legal ability to veto clean energy projects on Country.

We note the wider impacts of this emergent power of veto, which makes consent more valuable to developers, but also might encourage developers to avoid First Nations Country altogether.

We further observe that as First Nations groups become key stakeholders, or co-owners, in these kinds of development, they also can become exposed to significant financial risk.

The need to access excellent advice for First Nations groups in Australia who are navigating these projects – as developers, co-owners, shareholders, board members and contractors – is more urgent than ever.

Authors: Lily O'Neill, Kathryn Thorburn, First Nations at the forefront: The changing landscape of clean energy agreements in Australia, Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 127, 2025

Read the paper

The Network is concerned the Queensland government's Bill diminishes the value of agreement-making and engaging early and properly with Traditional Owners and First Nations communities.

The Planning (Social Impact and Community Benefit) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (the Bill) enables proponents to meet their social licence / benefit-sharing obligations by negotiating directly with local governments.

By directing proponents to engage with and enter into community benefit agreements with local councils, the scheme established by the Bill has the potential to silence and diminish the priorities, rights and interests of Traditional Owners and First Nations communities impacted by proposed developments.

The Network recommends that the Queensland Government should clarify that proponents should enter into benefit sharing agreements with Traditional Owners, and that agreements with Traditional Owners should not be set-off or diminished in any way by community benefit agreements with local councils.

Policy frameworks like the First Nations Clean Energy Strategy, and schemes like the Future Made in Australia Act 2024 (Cth) and the Capacity Investment Scheme are taking steps towards specifically incorporating First Nations outcomes in their design.

The Bill, as presently framed, fails to appropriately incorporate First Nations rights, interests and perspectives in its processes. This will diminish the planning system as a whole and the potential for it to shape projects that realise the best value for Queensland.

The Network recommends that the Queensland Government:

• establish a First Nations-specific assessment pathway and guidance for proponents engaging with Traditional Owners and First Nations communities
• require that all SIA include a cultural heritage assessment and incorporate First Nations-defined priorities.
• develop templates and resources to support First Nations participation in community benefit agreements, including governance, monitoring and accountability mechanisms.

Furthermore, the Network recommends that the Development Assessment Rules and the SIA Guideline must be updated to:

• require proponents to engage with Traditional Owners and First Nations communities early and continuously in the project lifecycle
• recognise First Nations people and groups as rightsholders with specific rights and interests in land, culture and development, and that Traditional Owners and First Nations communities must be engaged with and heard in the development of a SIA
• ensure principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (as articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People) is incorporated as a core principle of engagement
• require that providers undertaking social impact assessments must include First Nations people, or at a minimum, ensure that providers are culturally competent and wherever possible, that priority is given to providers with deep local experience and understanding of First Nation community priorities and aspirations in Queensland.

In relation to New State Code 26: Solar farm development, the Network also raises a number of concerns.

Our full submission to the State Development, Infrastructure and Works Committee Inquiry on this Bill can be accessed here.

Read our submission

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) details the rights of First Nations peoples in international law and policy. It establishes a universal framework of minimum standards for the survival, dignity, wellbeing and rights of the world's indigenous peoples.

Click here for the official document of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It contains the rights and principles that First Nations peoples should enjoy as equal and free peoples, based on their cultures, traditions and histories.

The standard of Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) set by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is expected when engaging on projects which impact on the rights and lands of First Nations peoples, where:

• Free means that a community/group must be able to give consent voluntarily and without coercion, intimidation or manipulation.
• Prior means the free consent of First Nations people is obtained before an action impacting a group and lands is taken, and the time needed for First Nations consultation / consensus processes has been respected.
• For consent to be informed, it must be based on accurate, timely, accessible and sufficient information. 
• Consent of First Nations people should be determined in accordance with a group’s customary laws and practices, through procedures and representative institutions determined by First Nations peoples.