TRANSCRIPT - SKY NEWS, CREDLIN

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

TRANSCRIPT

SKY NEWS CREDLIN

30 APRIL 2024


PETA CREDLIN: Joining me now to discuss this shadow Government Services Minister Paul Fletcher Paul, thank you for your time. A lot of secrecy around the selection process to get to the point that this billion dollars from taxpayers was awarded to this company today, there doesn't seem to be a hell of a lot of transparency, and this is a lot of money. 

PAUL FLETCHER: Good to be with you, Peta And that's right This process has been clouded in secrecy. There was no public transparent expression of interest process to call for applications. A small number of companies, as I understand it, were invited to participate, but they were required to sign non-disclosure agreements And as I understand it, the term's made it look like this had all been written so that PsiQuantum was going to be the winner. Of course, this is also a huge amount of money, $940 million. The government's been very cagey about what the commercial terms are equity and debt. What's the mix? What's the interest rate on the loan? How long before it has to be repaid? What rights does the government and ultimately taxpayers get putting in this tax payers money? Will there be a share of ownership of the company? Will there be rights to the intellectual property that's developed? Will there be a share of commercial royalties Is none of that has been disclosed? And it's hard to have much confidence that the government, that this labor government has negotiated in the way that commercial investors would. But I think there's a bigger question. Is it appropriate to risk so much taxpayers money on a technology that on any view is several years away from being commercialisable? Is it appropriate to risk so much taxpayers money on one company? I think those are all questions that taxpayers would be asking right now. 

PETA CREDLIN: Yeah, Paul, when I was digging around today, I noticed that PsiQuantum this is the company was only registered as a company in Australia about a year ago, and it was only within a week before the national quantum strategy from the government was actually even released. Now, I think it's fair that Labor explains why they chose this particular company. As I said, you know, there are other companies here in Australia One involves a former Australian of the year, the quantum physicist Michelle Simmons. She's got a company based in Sydney. Yet we've gone with this offshore mob that's only just been registered in Australia. 

PAUL FLETCHER: Yeah. Look, let's be clear, Australia is very competitive globally when it comes to quantum computing. There's great research being done over many years at UNSW, at Sydney University, at ANU at a number of other universities. There are several companies that are already involved in commercialising technology with people working here in Australia. So an obvious question is why has the government chosen to allocate this very large amount of money to a company that's not based in Australia? It's based in the US Yes. Some of its founders are Australian. They've been working overseas for many years. Nothing wrong with that. But when you listen to Minister Husic, he seems to be suggesting that bringing Australians home is one of the justifications for this very large investment. I think there's a real question about the impact this might have on market perceptions of all of those other Australian based quantum computing companies, because the Australian government is effectively saying, well, we've looked across the board and we've chosen sci quantum instead of all of the Australian based companies. Does that do damage to their capacity to raise money? A number of those companies have raised significant money in the private marketplace, in the commercial marketplace, and are making very solid progress. So I think there is a non-trivial risk that this actually does damage to a number of well developed, locally based quantum computing companies. 

PETA CREDLIN: What concerns me, Paul, this programme and this was discussed with Ross Greenwood last week, this debate in Australia, our Future Australia programme He picked up a green alumina company that got a $400 million grant. In recent days. He said that prior to receiving that grant last year, the company had only booked $25,000 in revenue. Like this one. Very new start up based again like this. All these non-disclosure agreements, commercial and confidence. When you ask questions, surely taxpayers are owed more transparency here. 

PAUL FLETCHER: Absolutely. And the coalition is very concerned at the way that the Albanese government is splashing around taxpayers’ money and, as you rightly say, a complete lack of process. If this was a private sector venture capital company, they would have to a be accountable to investors, they'd have to disclose a lot of information. And but at least you would have the confidence that there were people involved in making these investment decisions who have some experience in doing this. What we've got now is a collection of former union officials splashing around huge amounts of taxpayers’ money. And what we know is that Minister Husic visited PsiQuantum in Silicon Valley and both late 2022 and early 2023, and subsequent to that point, a process got underway within his department. The indications are that it was not a public or transparent process. In fact, we know that. But the indications also are, as I understand it, that there was significant disquiet expressed from a range of sources across government that were asked to provide advice. And that would be so for a whole host of reasons a very large amount of money, a bet on one company, a bet on one technology. Look, this is being positioned as a manufacturing programme or a manufacturing funding. But what we know on any view is that this technology is early stage. It is several years away from turning into something that is robust, reliable and commercialisable. If it ever gets to that point again, that is not to question the quality of the quantum research being done by PsiQuantum or indeed by a whole range of great companies located here in Australia, it is to question whether this is a wise and judicious use of taxpayers money, or whether there's a very real risk that hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers money are going to be squandered. 

PETA CREDLIN: Paul Fletcher, thank you.