CAMERON MILNER: Albanese Government’s Future Made in Australia fund has been lucrative for a select few

There’s always a problem with governments picking winners with taxpayer dollars, but it’s downright electorally toxic if they also pick winners connected to mates.

Voters really don’t tolerate an inside run on our dime, that’s why there are increasing questions and now a stench hanging over Labor’s signature policy Future Made in Australia, more appropriately known as “Future Made for Mates”.

At the May Budget Treasurer Jim Chalmers rose to make the Future Made in Australia program a centrepiece of new expenditure, committing $22.7 billion of taxpayers’ hard earned towards the program. He released multiple press statements, wrote opinion pieces and has been a champion of the Bill to allow the rivers of gold to flow to a select few.

But the weekend papers carried a story that Chalmers’ loyalty was being questioned because he didn’t have even one line in a recent keynote speech mentioning the FMIA.

So, what’s changed from April, when the first news broke of the eyewatering Australian taxpayer investment of $1b into what was then the relatively unknown PsiQuantum, which claims it will build the world’s first “useful” quantum computer?

Maybe Chalmers’ reluctance to spruik Future Made in Australia confirms what many inside the Canberra beltway already suspect about the program — that it’s become little more than a gravy train of easy money.

The Liberals have delegated Paul Fletcher to run attacks on the PsiQuantam investment. Paul who, I hear you say?

Well exactly, the guy has the charisma of a mortician and the communications skills of an actuarial accountant. With anyone else, this would actually be causing the Government real heartburn.

That said, Fletcher has asked the right questions and has helpfully made accusations under parliamentary privilege.

He’s established that PsiQuantum engaged a small lobbying firm with two key former senior Labor staffers, both very well known to Labor ministers in Canberra, especially the PMO, Chalmers and of course Industry and Science Minister Husic. The firm certainly isn’t among the biggest Labor influencing shops like Hawker Britton, Anacta or Council House.

The Saturday Paper reports that PsiQuantum added another Labor-aligned economics group Mandala, headed by very well-connected Labor staffer Amit Singh. Again Mandala has a name, but it’s hardly one of the big four.

It was also disclosed by the same paper that Blackbird “informally lobbied” Husic on PsiQuantum’s behalf. Under the lobbying code there’s no such exemption for “informal” lobbying.

Then Fletcher made the connection between the point guard senior adviser for tech in Minister Husic’s office, Emma Broad, who is a close personal friend of Kate Glazebrook.

Who is Kate?

Well, Kate Glazebrook is the operating principal of Blackbird Ventures, an outfit deeply invested in the success of PsiQuantum as a venture capital investor. Glazebrook was appointed by Husic in December 2023 to be one of seven people on the body that advises on investment into the industry.

Kate followed another Blackbird Ventures executive Clare Birch, who just happened to shape Husic’s policy on you guessed it, the National Quantum Strategy.

So, well-connected Labor lobby and advisory firms and executives from the very venture capital firm that stands to make massive returns if PsiQuantum — with the help of $1b from the taxpayer — actually invents something that works.

PsiQuantum can’t tell you if they’ve actually got a working model.

Blackbird Ventures makes investments in all manner of start-ups. They are long-term investors.

So it’s notable that the partner of Blackbird Ventures, Niki Scevak, has been making long-term investments in Labor.

Scevak can be found back in 2015 attending Labor Party policy forums with none other than Ed Husic. In fact, the Labor for Innovation Group was chaired by a CEO of another Scevak’s investments at the time.

Ever since, Scevak hasn’t been far away from a helpful media endorsement of the latest Husic pronouncement.

Fast forward and now Husic appears to be Blackbird Ventures’ volunteer head of marketing.

Husic can be found promoting a Blackbird-backed company called Nomad Atomics in July last year.

Husic announced an exclusive licence for space launches in March for Gilmour Space, another Blackbird Ventures-backed company, while another, Cortical Labs, got a science grant from Husic’s ministerial portfolio.

Husic even helped out spruiking in an out-of-portfolio speech about how super funds, taxpayer money and even tax cuts should further help out venture capital firms that back innovation.

Then last week another of Scevak’s ventures, SunDrive, ran into huge problems. Despite getting $1b from the Future Made for Mates fund, they couldn’t make their solar panels in the Hunter Valley, but would instead send production offshore to China. Scevak’s Blackbird is a key investor in Sundrive and he sits on their advisory board with another Blackbird Ventures executive, Robyn Denholm, Blackbird’s operating partner.

Husic is currently leading the Government’s policy review into AI regulation. And you guessed it: Blackbird has invested in multiple AI start-ups too.

There’s nothing like the free money that governments dish out.

Government grants and funding also massively drive company values as the endorsement and validation of valuation gold.

And it’s even better if, like PsiQuantum, you get to work exclusively with the Government working up your funding proposal.

Of course, knowing the minister for over a decade, employing lesser-known but excellently connected advisors and having multiple companies marketed by the same minister may very well be just a happy coincidence.

But punters won’t buy it. They start with a healthy cynicism and think politicians are only in it for themselves and they won’t be taken in by the Albanese Government’s Future Made for Mates boondoggle.

We’ll all know soon enough if the LNP win the Queensland election this Saturday. The LNP has promised an audit of all Labor funding decisions. That will include no doubt a deep and searching probe about the $500 million of Queensland taxpayers’ funds that went to PsiQuantum under Husic’s deal.

Get out the popcorn, it’s about to get very interesting.