MEDIA RELEASE - LABOR HAS SERIOUS QUESTIONS TO ANSWER OVER QUANTUM FUNDING

PAUL FLETCHER MP

Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy

Manager of Opposition Business in the House

MEDIA RELEASE

30 April 2024

LABOR HAS SERIOUS QUESTIONS TO ANSWER OVER QUANTUM FUNDING

The Coalition has serious concerns over the very poor process and lack of transparency surrounding the Albanese Government’s announcement that nearly one billion dollars of taxpayers’ money will be provided to US based company PsiQuantum.

Shadow Minister for Science Paul Fletcher said this huge allocation of funding follows a very poor process facilitated in a secretive manner and lacking in competitive rigour. 

“Nobody is questioning the high potential of quantum computing and the world leading work being done by Australian quantum computing researchers and early stage companies,” Mr Fletcher said.

“But there are serious questions Labor needs to answer about why there was no open, publicly announced, transparent expression of interest process to choose a company to receive this significant amount of taxpayer money. 

“To allocate such a large amount of funding through a secretive process with only a handful of participants is a very curious way to proceed.

“Ed Husic met with Silicon Valley based PsiQuantum in late 2022 and again in early 2023. Instead of being open and honest about this funding process, he and his department have made every effort to avoid answering legitimate questions from the media, parliament, and Coalition. 

“Australian taxpayers who see such a large amount of money allocated to one company would reasonably want to know how taxpayers will benefit and what, if any, ownership stake they will receive in PsiQuantum. Other obvious questions concern governance arrangements, rights to intellectual property developed, and rights to a royalty stream out of future commercial revenues.  

“And everyone who cares about the vigorous and diverse Australian quantum computing sector, which contains multiple world leading Australian based researchers and companies, would wonder what signal this sends to current and potential domestic and international investors.  

“The Australian government has just chosen to allocate a large amount of funding to a foreign based quantum computing company rather than any of the outstanding locally based quantum companies and researchers. It would be a tragedy if this decision by the Albanese Labor Government ends up making it more difficult for Australian based quantum companies to compete for global investment because of a perception that their own government doesn’t believe in them.

“The issue is not whether or not PsiQuantum is a good company with respected leaders.  The issue is whether it is a good idea to allocate such a huge amount of money to one single company in the large and diverse quantum sector; what Australian taxpayers will receive in return for this investment; and how this particular company was chosen above all of the other impressive companies in the Australian quantum computing sector.

“Labor has a lot of questions to answer about this particular exercise in choosing a Ministerial favourite.”

 Media contact: William Sparling | 0416 628 276 | [email protected]