Latest / Best of Business / Nick Leggett: Chief Executive on Infrastructure NZ on Greens' anti-data centre policy

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Nick Leggett: Chief Executive on Infrastructure NZ on Greens' anti-data centre policy · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
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  Speaker 2: The Greens have decided data centers need another look. They
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  Speaker 2: wanted one year pause. They want a decent set of rules.
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  Speaker 2: Nick Legan, as the Chief Executive of Infrastructure New Zealand And,
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  Speaker 2: is back with this. Nick, very good morning to you.
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  Speaker 3: Hi, Mike.
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  Speaker 2: We've got a global thing building here, haven't we against data?
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  Speaker 2: We thought data centers were the greatest thing in the
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  Speaker 2: history of the world until we didn't. So do we
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  Speaker 2: have a problem here, Well, we do have.
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  Speaker 3: A problem in the sense that we're going to work
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  Speaker 3: out what we do because you know, these are the
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  Speaker 3: factories and warehouses of the digital economy and New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: at the moment as a taker of those services, the
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  Speaker 3: question is can we start being a producer? And it's
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  Speaker 3: moving so fast, Mike, I mean even in the last
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  Speaker 3: few weeks you can feel this is just sped up
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  Speaker 3: for this discussion and New Zealand and its typical style,
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  Speaker 3: can't It's got to walk and scheue gun at the
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  Speaker 3: same time.
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  Speaker 4: I think we've got to.
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  Speaker 3: Open the or to the opportunity, but also work out
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  Speaker 3: how we can maximize the benefit for New Zealand. When
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  Speaker 3: you have a data center that uses so much energy,
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  Speaker 3: is it going to be the data center that pays
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  Speaker 3: not just for the energy, but for the transmission that's
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  Speaker 3: required to make that happen and all the other services
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  Speaker 3: are key wes I think, I think we know we've
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  Speaker 3: got to expand our economy and grow. We've just got
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  Speaker 3: to ensure here that everything is ticking the box across
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  Speaker 3: the country so people can feel comfortable.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but why didn't we have this discussion because this
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  Speaker 2: has been going on internationally for years now, and that
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  Speaker 2: water resource thing was None of this is new. We
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  Speaker 2: knew this was coming and we've got fixated over the
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  Speaker 2: Southland business. The seventy data centers already in the country.
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  Speaker 2: I bet you no one knew that anyway, that's right,
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  Speaker 2: So why haven't we talked about this?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I mean that's right, and you think about on
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  Speaker 4: your internet, banking or anything you're consuming, whether it's your
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  Speaker 4: AI on your phone, we're all consumers here and often
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  Speaker 4: the data.
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  Speaker 3: That's producing the services we're using at the moment. We're
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  Speaker 3: actually nine times out of ten will be created in
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  Speaker 3: an offshore data center is New Zealand open to adding
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  Speaker 3: itself to the World Network. Mike, you know, this country
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  Speaker 3: is good at a great many things. Sometimes though, because
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  Speaker 3: we're kind of at the end of the world, things
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  Speaker 3: pass us by, and I think we've got to this
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  Speaker 3: is what I say about walking and chewing gum at
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  Speaker 3: the same time. We've got to progress the opportunities we've got,
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  Speaker 3: and we've got to build a plan and a framework
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  Speaker 3: so we can actually understand what it is we're deciding
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  Speaker 3: at the same time. And that shouldn't be that shouldn't
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  Speaker 3: be too much for us to handle, but it is.
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  Speaker 3: You know, things are moving fast.
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  Speaker 4: This is the world, and we've got to be moving
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  Speaker 4: fast with it.
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  Speaker 2: Good on, You're nice to talk to. You think we
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  Speaker 2: should be able to walk and chew gum at the
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  Speaker 2: same time.
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