Address to the Federation Chamber, Private Members' Business

Monday 18 November 2024

I'm grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate and join with my government colleagues to oppose this motion. As the member for Bean in the ACT, in the nation's capital, home to many of Australia's leading high-tech users and developers, I am acutely aware of the need for Australia to build its own capacity and to reduce our nation's dependency on overseas—and when it comes to quantum, it is a race. With all the tragedy and suffering, the COVID era provided us with a useful wake-up call that Australia must do better in building our capacities in the space of the new technologies shaping our world today and into the future. Whilst this motion is purely here as political play by the opposition and should be seen as such, I am pleased this debate provides an opportunity to talk about some of the positive thinking and action this government is taking in this space.

Under our plans for a future made in Australia, the Albanese government is revitalising our manufacturing and technological muscle that just withered under a decade of coalition governments. But to grow in the years ahead, modern economies need strong manufacturing and technological capability. That's why, with the Queensland government, we committed to investing almost half a billion dollars in equity and loans to PsiQuantum, a globally leading firm founded—again, to remind the opposition—by Australians Jeremy O'Brien and Terry Rudolph, two of the world's leading quantum physicists. This will mean that PsiQuantum, one of the highest valued quantum computing companies in the world, will build the world's first commercial-scale quantum computer and establish its Asia-Pacific headquarters here in Australia. This is in keeping with Australia's first ever national quantum strategy, announced in May 2023 by this government. It means hundreds of jobs, extra grunt to our R&D capabilities and billions of dollars of direct investment in Australia by PsiQuantum—investment that would otherwise have gone overseas. It means research and education scholarships, industry partnerships, supply chain opportunities and a dedicated climate research centre.

Since the Australian government announced this investment, the US government has followed suit, supporting PsiQuantum's second facility in Chicago. PsiQuantum has already hit the ground running in Australia, announcing research and education partnerships with five Queensland universities, opening an R&D lab and building for an Australian team. We released the Chief Scientist's advice on this important investment, which emphasised its impact on our local industries. It said:

Having this big company in Australia will attract the supply chains here and provide an uplift in adjacent industries such as photonics … and semiconductors which are as critical to human life now as water, food, housing and energy.

The Chief Scientist described it as being our Taiwan moment. Just as Taiwan moved into semiconductors in the 1970s, here was our chance to be a global hub for the quantum industry. But the coalition wants to take Australia backwards, whilst we want to invest in Australia's future.

We agree that the process is important, and it's important to put on the record here that this was a rigorous, extensive, whole-of-government process with economic, legal, commercial, technical, probity and national security advice. We drew on expertise from across government and outside it, including from our Chief Scientist, who scrutinised PsiQuantum over many months, asking the hard questions. This was her ultimate conclusion:

I support this as an opportunity.

This is one opportunity that will mean Australia has a real quantum industry … that will be world leading.

Her assessment has been backed by the technical advisory group, including scientists from CSIRO and the Defence Science and Technology Group, concluding that PsiQuantum demonstrated extensive experience and considerable capability and the necessary capacity to pursue its technical roadmap.

The government also ran an expression-of-interest process in accordance with public sector advice to assure ourselves that we weren't overlooking a competitor who might be as close to PsiQuantum in delivering a fault-tolerant quantum computer. We've released that EOI assessment. It's not murky; it's incredibly transparent. That assessment outlines the rigour taken by the assessment panel and technical advisory group, with comprehensive probity advice. The panel found no applications were competitive or highly competitive. In the Chief Scientist's words, the EOI found PsiQuantum were 'a country mile' ahead.

But we shouldn't be surprised by a motion that is effectively an anti-jobs fishing expedition from the team that gave us the COVID app and robodebt.