On 14 June 2025, Anthony Albanese stood inside an enormous sphere of glass and steel, surrounded by 40,000 plants from around the world. His mind was firmly fixed on datacentres. The prime minister was in the Seattle headquarters of Amazon Web Services.
He stood alongside the company’s chief executive, Matt Garman, who outlined a $20bn plan to build datacentres in Melbourne and Sydney. Speaking to a travelling press pack, Garman was emphatic that Australia was “incredibly important and a great market” for the world’s biggest datacentre company. Within days of Albanese returning home, Amazon reported its largest payment to an Australian political party on record.
The company’s federal disclosures show a $46,500 payment to the Labor party’s federal branch on 28 June. This was one of 34 payments – totalling $538,000 – that Amazon made to Labor and Liberal branches over a six-year period. While the money did not influence the government’s decision-making, it continued a trend of Amazon disclosing payments shortly before or after multibillion-dollar announcements.
Payments such as this are legal. But as governments face community backlash for fast-tracking datacentres, these financial contributions are facing renewed scrutiny. So, too, are the well-connected political operatives, from former policy advisers to at least one former premier, who have been paid to lobby governments on behalf of datacentre companies.
Transparency International Australia’s CEO, Clancy Moore, says a cutting-edge industry is relying on old methods. In 2024 the Albanese government announced a $2bn deal with Amazon Web Services to build three top-secret datacentres to store sensitive information gathered by intelligence agencies. Eight days before that deal was announced, on 26 June, Amazon disclosed a $33,000 payment to Labor, according to Australian Electoral Commission filings.
Less than six weeks later, another $33,000 payment was disclosed. The payments were membership fees for the party’s fundraising vehicle, the Labor Business Forum, which facilitates access to ministers and MPs. Amazon has paid more than $200,000 in membership fees to the forum since mid-2021.
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