Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology. How many applications for funding to support the manufacture of mRNA vaccines in Australia has the government received and how many have been funded?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. The member seems to consider that with this extremely advanced, cutting-edge technology—of which the commercial and scientific future is imperfectly understood, even by the experts in the production and manufacture community and in the scientific community—people in their dozens come, unsolicited, to government with proposals to establish that sort of manufacturing facility.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we have done is we have gone and insisted upon a very thorough analysis of the market through a very, very thorough process conducted by McKinsey. They have spoken to the major players, of which there are only a handful. We are now considering that report, but what the question seeks to lead Australians to believe is that somehow such a production facility could have been up and running or could be imminently up and running, and it is important for all Australians to understand that the actual science and commerciality of this technology speaks totally against that proposition.

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The members on my left will cease interjecting. Obviously, given the nature of the question, I have allowed the minister to give some context to all of that; however, this question was very specific. In fact, it was two very specific questions. So now, having given him that time, which is about half the time available, he will really need to address those questions or wind up his answer.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are only a tiny number of commercial entities who are even possibly able to do this, and we are in conversations with them. That's what responsible governments do, based on the best information that is available. It should be noted that many said it was absolutely impossible to do what the government have done, which is to retool CSL so that they could produce the adenovirus AstraZeneca vaccine, but we did that. We will investigate this technology, and we will produce a result in due course.