David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

That $600 million figure is interesting but totally unrelated to my question. My question was not how many existing permits will not be required within the bubble of the United States, the UK and Australia. My question is: how many permits will be required as a result of this legislation for all of the work that's currently undertaken in universities and industry which will be impacted by the additional controls to make us compliant with US weapons export control legislation? Mr Nockels said 'dozens'. We asked on notice for any evidence that backed up Mr Nockels's statement of 'dozens', and we got a refusal to answer on the basis of national security. So again I ask you: do you support Mr Nockels's evidence that it's dozens, or is it more likely what higher education and industry have said, which is potentially tens of thousands of permits? How many?