The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) has produced a Blueprint and Action Plan addressing the opportunities and risks resulting from the embrace of critical technologies.
In a statement, PM&C said the Blueprint set out the vision, while the Action Plan outlined what Australia was doing to protect and promote critical technologies.
“These technologies can facilitate economic and jobs growth, secure our manufacturing and agricultural competitiveness, improve our health outcomes, enable our energy transition, strengthen our Defence Forces and much more,” PM&C said.
“Critical technologies can be digital, such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, as well as non-digital, such as synthetic biology and genomics,” it said.
PM&C noted that the Blueprint and Action Plan had resulted from the work of the Critical Technologies Policy Coordination Office (CTPCO).
It said the CTPCO had been established within the Department in July 2020 to provide coordinated whole-of-Government advice on technology developments, opportunities and risks, and to recommend actions to promote and protect critical technologies.
“As a coordination policy office, the CTPCO takes a balanced national interest approach to critical technologies, considering national security risks, economic prosperity opportunities and social cohesion objectives,” PM&C said.
“It will ensure Australians have access to cost-effective, safe, secure and inclusive technologies; promote Australia as a trusted partner for investment, research, innovation and collaboration; and support regional resilience and competitive, trusted and diverse technology innovation and international markets.”
It said the CTPCO was engaging across Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments, and with industry, academia and international partners.
The Department said there were many current and emerging technologies with the capacity to significantly enhance or pose risk to Australia’s national interest.
“Technological advances drive increased productivity, growth and improved living standards; but also have the potential to harm our national and economic security interests and undermine our democratic values and principles,” it said.
“It is imperative that we make decisions, in collaboration with trusted partners, which will shape the critical technologies of the future to support our liberal democratic values, ethics and human rights,” PM&C said.
The Department’s 50-page Action Plan can be accessed at this PS News link.
