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

The simple answer to that is: that's not at all what the former industry minister said, and that's why you won't quote directly. The former industry minister was talking about capability, and if you have a look at capability, for instance, at the University of Monash, they have created an mRNA prototype. The capability in the science to create these things, these remarkable vaccines, exists, and that was acknowledged by the former industry minister; it's acknowledged by this government. The complexity of the project if we are to domestically invent, if you like, the vaccine and to create the IP and the tech that would otherwise need to be transferred here—that needs to go through three clinical phases of trials and then has to be married to a commercial manufacturing facility domestically that has to have the scalable productive capacity to go from zero to 25 million doses. That's a matter of significant complexity.

In fact, it was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald not that long ago that some other countries in the region had, in the words of that article, signed major global partners for local mRNA facilities, and they mentioned Singapore and South Korea. To give the member who asked the question some idea of the complexity of this, in Singapore, the German company Beyontec announced in May that it would seek to establish a manufacturing facility in Singapore. That is looking to commence the sorts of operations that we're talking about here in 2023, and that is similar to the type of advice that we are getting as to what is doable and achievable. Where that article mentions South Korea, what needs to be noted is that the deal, it appears, in South Korea is with Moderna and merely for fill and finish, not for the full manufacture from the lab through to millions of doses. So this is a matter of some complication.

I'd respectfully say to the member that the reason why we, unlike the Leader of the Opposition, have pinned things like Australia's international reopening to the domestic manufacturer of mRNA is there are simply too many uncertainties on the timeline to do that.

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