$1bn PsiQuantum deal in doubt if Coalition and LNP win office
PsiQuantum’s $1bn deal with the Albanese and Miles governments to build a quantum computer in Brisbane could be torn up if the Coalition wins federal and Queensland elections within 12 months.
PsiQuantum’s $1bn deal with the Albanese and Miles governments to build a yet-to-be-developed fault-tolerant quantum computer in Brisbane could be torn up if the Coalition wins federal and Queensland elections within 12 months.
The Australian can reveal deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley, opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor and opposition science spokesman Paul Fletcher will meet virtually with PsiQuantum co-founder and CEO Jeremy O’Brien on Friday.
The meeting with the US-based tech company comes after PsiQuantum hired Liberal-linked lobbyist firm CT Group on April 4 to help connect with Coalition powerbrokers after the federal and Queensland governments on Tuesday announced they would each pump $470m into developing the world-first computer.
On the day of the announcement, CT lobbyists reached out to Coalition MPs and staffers of the Liberal Party leadership team offering an “urgent” briefing with Professor O’Brien. Lobbyists from the firm, which fell out with Peter Dutton’s team after helping run the Yes voice referendum campaign, encountered frosty responses from senior Coalition figures who expressed concerns about handing almost $1bn in taxpayer-funded equity, grants and loans to a US-based firm.
Ahead of the PsiQuantum meeting, a senior Coalition source told The Australian “it’s hard to know what stinks more: the process that led to Anthony Albanese making this decision or the actual decision itself”.
“PsiQuantum and their army of Labor lobbyists successfully managed to dupe the incompetent (Industry Minister) Ed Husic, but they’re not going to get the same reception at this meeting,” the source said.
Figures in the Queensland Liberal National Party opposition – on track to win the October state election, according to the latest polls – are also expressing deep concerns about the $1bn deal, particularly that an American company would end up owning and running the computer.
There is very little detail about the agreement that’s been made public, but The Australian understands the grants portion of the funding is less than 10 per cent, with the majority made up of loans and equity.
While the federal Coalition is yet to land a formal position ahead of the 2025 election, senior party figures have discussed pulling out of the deal and using the funding to support Australian-based businesses and jobs, countering Labor’s Future Made in Australia push. If the Queensland LNP wins the state election and withdraws PsiQuantum funding, Mr Dutton would be expected to follow suit if he pulled off an upset 2025 election victory.
Ms Ley, Mr Taylor and Mr Fletcher are expected to grill Professor O’Brien about the process that led to PsiQuantum’s funding deal and the substance of the agreement in relation to what work would be carried out in Brisbane, given the quantum computer technology is unlikely to be realised until 2029. They are also concerned about the lack of detail around funding structures and Australia not retaining intellectual property rights or ownership of the computer.
Mr Husic has defended the federal government’s approach to the deal, insisting “we applied technical, legal, commercial and probity assessments … to inform cabinet processes on what would be required … this has been a determined, deliberately detailed process”.
Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick defended the government’s due diligence process, and said the nearly $500m from the state would “allow us to take a piece of that intellectual property”. Mr Dick said he had never met the Labor-linked lobbyists spruiking the project, and Queensland Treasury and Queensland Investment Corporation had spent more than two years analysing the deal.
“They took external advice both on legal scientific and financial bases that included entities like Deloitte, Bank of America, and Allens, the big international law firm,” he said.
Mr Dick confirmed the computer would be built at a site to be identified in the Brisbane Airport precinct, and said there wasn’t a competitive process for the funds because “there weren’t a lot of Queensland-grown quantum technology experts who wanted to bring their technology back to Queensland”.
Following revelations PsiQuantum hired Labor-linked lobbyist and consultancy firms to help facilitate the funding deal, Mr Dutton on Thursday suggested the Albanese government was propping up struggling Queensland Premier Mr Miles.
“We can’t be putting $1bn into a US company to build a computer here to try and save Steven Miles from the next election, just because the Labor lobbyists have lobbied the Prime Minister to do so. I just think that money is much better directed into helping people … and … change the course of what’s a pretty bad pathway at the moment,” he told 2GB.
“Is quantum computing important? Of course it is. But you’ve got these Labor lobbyists who have come together, and the Prime Minister’s signed up to a deal with Steven Miles to put in $1bn at a time when families just can’t afford to put food on their table or pay their grocery bill at the checkout. The government’s just got the priorities all wrong.”
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