TRANSCRIPT - ABC Afternoon Briefing with Melissa Clarke

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

ABC Afternoon Briefing 

10 OCTOBER 2024

Melissa Clarke: Newly released documents show that the nation’s Chief Scientist was initially very sceptical of PsiQuantum, the company that has received nearly $1 billion in government support to build a supercomputer. But the documents also show she became convinced it was a good investment once she heard more detailed information about the company’s progress, declaring it a high risk but potentially high return investment.

The Opposition, though, remains unconvinced the investment has been made in a sound way. Paul Fletcher is the Opposition spokesman for the science and the arts, as well as government services and the digital economy, and he joins me in our studios. Paul, thanks for being with us.

Paul Fletcher: Good to be with you, Melissa.

Melissa Clarke: So these documents that the Senate ordered the government to hand over from the Department of Infrastructure show that the Chief Scientist was initially worried, but she became convinced once she pressed for more information. So if the Chief Scientist is convinced by the details she's seen that this is a good investment, why isn't the Opposition also convinced?

Paul Fletcher: Well, I think these documents add to the picture that has been emerging since we first saw this surprise announcement from the government at the end of April that they were going to commit almost a billion dollars of taxpayers money to an American company, PsiQuantum, to build a so called fault tolerant, error corrected quantum computer, the world's first in Australia and according to Ed Husic, by 26 -27. So within about three years. Now, there's considerable scepticism across the quantum community as to whether that in fact can be achieved.

Melissa Clarke: It's a very emerging field. So it would be a groundbreaking move for whoever does at first.

Paul Fletcher: It's clearly a high risk move, as the Chief Scientist has said. And there's a real question as to whether that's an appropriate thing to do with public money. Effectively, the Albanese government has put all of their chips on black. They've made a big bet on one company, one particular technology.

There are multiple technology paths being explored in the quantum world, but what is very curious is that Australian companies like Diraq and Silicon Quantum Computing, both spun out from UNSW quantum brilliance from ANU Q control, from Sydney University, were not given the chance to participate in a fair and open process.

In fact, they were told for a long time there was no new money available for quantum. They were taken by surprise when this announcement was made. So there are real process problems about how the Albanese government arrived at this decision.

Melissa Clarke: So it is both that it's all funnelled into one, all the chips on black, as you say, but also the mechanism upon which, arriving at that one. On the first point, in an area that is as high risk as this is, they are shooting for something that hasn't been done, trying to develop an emerging technology. You could certainly make the argument that spreading small amounts of money across a number of fields won't necessarily lead to that breakthrough that we need, that if you really want to see a great development, you need a critical mass in one place, and this might be the way to do it. Do you accept that sometimes there is a need to channel resources into one area?

Paul Fletcher: You can also make the argument that there's a non-trivial likelihood that this very substantial amount of public money will not produce any return at all, and that a more prudent use of public money would be to spread the funds across a range of different companies and also to do things like funding test bed facilities, which can be used by all of the companies in the space. And those are some of the strategies that other countries have used. 

What seems to have happened is that Minister Husic met personally with PsiQuantam several times in late 2022 and early 2023. He went to their premises in Silicon Valley. He appears to be-

Melissa Clarke: Let’s be clear companies meet with ministers all the time. That's not necessarily unusual.

Paul Fletcher: Of course they do, but the story appears to be that he got dazzled by a particular technology, decided that the Australian government was going to invest in it, and then got his department to come up with a reverse engineered process. So, August-

Melissa Clarke: But when you say the government has been dazzled by this technology, I mean, it's part of AUKUS, which your government signed up to, that quantum computing is seen as an emerging area that we want to work with our allies on. It's a little more established than saying he was dazzled by.

Paul Fletcher: So why does one company get the right to meet with the minister on a number of occasions, have near unlimited access to his officials, his department, his personal office? Then when this expression of interest process kicked off in August, those Australian companies I mentioned and others, one email sent to say do you want to participate in an EOI?

They were told, you may not speak to Australian government officials. When PsiQuantum, for ten months had had the right to speak to Australian government officials, up to and including the minister. It's a dodgy process, reverse engineered to cover up a captain's pick. This is an inappropriate, highly risky decision, and it does look very much as if an individual minister got dazzled by slick salespeople.

Now, let's be clear I make no criticism of PsiQuantum. They are well respected scientifically, but that's a very different question to is this a prudent use of Australian taxpayers money? Is this good science policy? We say it's not.

Melissa Clarke: Alright, well we'll see if the audit office picks up and looks into that one. I want to turn to the committee, that the government has established to look into nuclear power technology. It does seem to be the rationale from the government is people want to know more information and the Coalition isn't delivering it. Is this a sign that you should be giving the public more information about how much it's going to cost, how long it's going to take and how it fits into the energy grid?

Paul Fletcher: Well let's be clear, we will absolutely participate in this process in good faith. There will be Coalition members on this committee and indeed in the debate this morning to establish the committee, we moved amendments that would have expanded the role of the committee and provided for more Coalition MPs to be part of it.

So we are very confident that what this will allow us to do is to demonstrate, for example, the international evidence. We've done a lot of work on this. Ted O'Brien, who's our spokesman, has travelled to-

Melissa Clarke: He's done a lot of work, but he's not telling us all the information, how he wants to formulate a plan.

Paul Fletcher: We have announced a plan, we've announced locations and of course when people in many of those locations have been interviewed, they've demonstrated an openness to considering it. And we've also laid out a clear stage process for extensive community consultation-

Melissa Clarke: And then your Nationals partners have said, well, and Peter Dutton has said, well, it doesn't really matter what the public says, you're going to go ahead with these seven sites.

Paul Fletcher: Well, what we will be doing is going to the election with a plan because the fact is that countries against which we typically benchmark ourselves, Canada, United States, United Kingdom, France, Sweden, all of these companies have a significant role for nuclear zero emissions nuclear as their means of achieving net zero by 2050.

We're very serious about achieving net zero by 2050. If you look at Mister Bowen's plans, they're falling well behind the rate at which they need to be contracting new renewable capacity to meet the claimed 82% by-

Melissa Clarke: I'm just not clear why we can't have the details of this plan now.

Paul Fletcher: We will provide the details, including the costings well in advance of the election. So the.-

Melissa Clarke: Well in advance? Well in advance?

Paul Fletcher: So the Australian people can have the information they need to make their decision. But let's be clear, this is an Opposition with a plan to provide base load energy, zero emissions energy, as part of a mix with an important and continuing role for renewables. Today our mix is coal, natural gas, renewables.

In the future we see a mix of nuclear, natural gas, renewables and it's clear as you look at jurisdictions like Ontario, Arizona, Tennessee, all around the world, a mix of nuclear and renewables is a common thing. We think it'll work well in Australia.

Melissa Clarke: I'm just going to ask you one last brief question. The Prime Minister has announced that after meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang that the resumption of rock lobster exports to China will be able to resume in time for Chinese New Year, which is January. Is this a sign that the Labor government is successfully repairing the trading relationship with China?

Paul Fletcher: Well, for Australian lobster lovers, what it probably means is a bit less lobster on our tables locally and probably paying a bit more for it. But look, I've only seen very scant details of the announcement but if it bears up as announced, it's clearly good news for our lobster sector who have been subject to trade sanctions, as have a number of other sectors.

Australia has stayed firm and resolute throughout that period. You know, frankly, very aggressive behaviour by the Chinese government. We've stayed firm as a nation. That's been the right thing to do.

Melissa Clarke: And Paul Fletcher, thank you very much. Appreciate you be