Private Members' Business - Select Committee on PsiQuantum Funding

Mr FLETCHER (Bradfield—Manager of Opposition Business) (11:42): I move:

That:

(1) a select committee, to be known as the Select Committee on PsiQuantum Funding, be appointed to inquire into and report on the process undertaken by the Australian Government to provide $470 million to American-based company PsiQuantum Pty Ltd;

(2) the committee is to inquire into the following matters:

(a) the process by which the Australian Government selected PsiQuantum Pty Ltd for investment;

(b) the expression of interest process;

(c) the financial implications of the investment;

(d) the commercial and scientific terms of the investment;

(e) whether actual or potential conflicts of interest have been appropriately managed;

(f) the nature and extent of interactions between PsiQuantum or its external advisers and the Minister for Industry and Science, the Minister's personal staff and officials of the Australian Public Service; and

(g) any other matters necessary or incidental to the committee forming a view as to whether the investment in PsiQuantum is a proper expenditure of public money;

(3) the Minister for Industry and Science be called by the committee to appear as a witness to assist the committee in its deliberations;

(4) the committee consist of seven members, three Members to be nominated by the Chief Government Whip and four Members to be nominated by the Chief Opposition Whip of whom at least two must be a crossbench Member;

(5) every nomination of a member be notified in writing to the Speaker of the House of Representatives;

(6) the committee may proceed to the dispatch of business notwithstanding that not all members have been duly nominated and appointed and notwithstanding any vacancy;

(7) the members of the committee hold office as a select committee until presentation of the committee's final report or until the House of Representatives is dissolved or expires by effluxion of time, whichever is the earlier;

(8) the committee present its final report no later than 1 March 2025;

(9) the committee elect an Opposition member as its chair;

(10) the committee elect a Government member as its deputy chair to act as chair of the committee at any time when the chair is not present at a meeting of the committee;

(11) at any time when the chair and deputy chair are not present at a meeting of the committee, the members present shall elect another member to act as chair at that meeting;

(12) in the event of an equally divided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, have a casting vote;

(13) three members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee;

(14) the committee have power to appoint subcommittees, consisting of three or more of its members, and to refer to any subcommittee any matter which the committee is empowered to examine;

(15) the committee appoint the chair of each subcommittee who shall have a casting vote only;

(16) two members of a subcommittee constitute the quorum of that subcommittee;

(17) members of the committee who are not members of a subcommittee may participate in the proceedings of that subcommittee but shall not vote, move any motion or be counted for the purpose of a quorum;

(18) the committee or any subcommittee has power to:

(a) call for witnesses to attend and for documents to be produced;

(b) conduct proceedings at any place it sees fit;

(c) sit in public or in private;

(d) report from time to time; and

(e) adjourn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the House of Representatives; and

(19) the provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.

The Albanese Labor government's decision to invest almost $1 billion of taxpayers' money into the American company PsiQuantum raises several serious questions which warrant scrutiny. Since the announcement was first made by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Industry and Science on 30 April, the opposition has sought to hold up to scrutiny this extraordinary bet which has been made with public money, and the government has trenchantly resisted that scrutiny at every stage. That is why today I'm moving to establish a parliamentary inquiry so that we can find out what happened and who is responsible. 

The Albanese government has chosen to bet a very large amount of public money on one particular company pursuing one particular technology path within the broad field of quantum—a field in which people who have worked for 20 or 30 years cannot say with certainty which of the many paths being explored is likely to achieve a successful outcome. On any view, it will be at least several years, very possibly longer, before the technology being developed by PsiQuantum is proven to work, if it can be proven to do so at all. 

We know that a very poor process was followed to get to this decision. The Albanese government agreed to assess an unsolicited proposal from PsiQuantum as early as November 2022, two months before external probity advisers were engaged. The Department of Industry, Science and Resources entered into a non-binding agreement with PsiQuantum in June 2023, yet the government points to an expression-of-interest process which commenced only in August 2023. It was an expression-of-interest process in which companies were invited to participate by one email only. There were no follow-up telephone calls; there was no second email. Those who were invited to participate were told they could not speak with Australian government officials. 

This was after PsiQuantum had been speaking for more than eight months with Australian government officials, up to and including the minister, who had visited their premises in California and had met with them directly. We now know the terms of the expression of interest. It essentially asked respondents to match the promise made by PsiQuantum of building a fault-tolerant, error corrected quantum computer by 2030. Many in the sector are extremely sceptical that this can be done. But scepticism is not welcome in Minister Husic's regime.

We know that Minister Husic has a particular interest in venture capital firm Blackbird. In October 2022, he appointed Clare Birch of Blackbird to the National Quantum Advisory Committee. In December 2022, he appointed Kate Glazebrook of Blackbird to the Industry Innovation and Science Australia Board. In May 2023, he launched the National Quantum Strategy with Nomad Atomics, a Blackbird funded company. On 30 April this year, he announced almost $1 billion in funding for PsiQuantum, a company in which Blackbird is an investor. Blackbird and the many other investors in this company of course greatly benefited from that decision and that announcement. It is on the record that there is a close personal friendship between the minister's senior adviser Ellen Broad and Blackbird executive Kate Glazebrook.

I've written to the Auditor-General requesting that the Australian National Audit Office undertake an investigation into the Australian government's investment in PsiQuantum, and the Auditor-General has responded that a potential investigation is being considered. There are many aspects of what happened here which are very concerning, and there needs to be a parliamentary inquiry to get to the bottom of this decision, the reasons for it and many other aspects of what happened. We know a deputy secretary who advised against this commitment of funding subsequently left the department after being on gardening leave for a considerable period of time. We know that Export Finance Australia was directed to commence work on providing the funding even before the expression-of-interest process had concluded.

The sad reality is that, as a consequence of this decision, Australian taxpayers are now exposed to almost $1 billion of their money being put at risk in what is a remarkably speculative venture. The minister has publicly stated that he welcomes scrutiny of this investment, and now is the time for him to back those words with action. If he's serious he will arrange for this resolution to brought on for a vote and for Labor to vote in support of it.