BARNABY Joyce has announced the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) would be relocated from Canberra to Armidale in his New England electorate, if the Turnbull government is re-elected at the July 2 poll.
Under the Coalition proposal, a Centre of Agricultural Excellence will be established at the University of New England (UNE) co-locating the APVMA with the University’s specialised agricultural research centres.
But the move has been opposed by farm groups who fear the relocation will see the APVMA lose critical scientific expertise which will extend delays in approving important farm chemical products.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources said within the first year of re-election the Coalition would proceed with the relocation.
Mr Joyce said there was always some apprehension when people were faced with moving locations for work but stressed it was a reality of modern life.
“We’re not asking people to move to Kathmandu or Timbuktu – Armidale is a beautiful city,” he said.
“In anything there’s always a form of transition.
“When they started moving people to Canberra people didn’t want to move to Canberra (and) when they started moving people to Sydney people definitely did not want to go to Sydney.
“I as the minister have made the call and I’ve got the backing of my government and it’s going to happen.”
Mr Joyce said creating a Centre of Excellence for agriculture in New England, serving all of Australia, would drive further growth in agricultural productivity, on-farm innovation and boost rural exports.
He said that approach would deliver substantial economic benefits not only to regional Australia but also to the national economy and all Australians.
“The Coalition has a strong economic plan for jobs and growth to create opportunities for families across the nation,” he said.
“A strong agricultural sector is part of our economic plan.
“Facilitating the strategic relocation of agricultural agencies to regional communities will help attract technical and scientific experts to live and build their careers in the country and enable stronger collaboration with farmers to drive innovation and productivity growth.”
Mr Joyce said the Armidale community and economy and New England region would directly benefit from the APVMA’s relocation, employing around 175 staff.
He said the government had commissioned an independent cost-benefit analysis which would inform the next steps in relocating the APVMA to the University of New England in Armidale.
But CropLife Australia said crucial agricultural product innovations would be significantly delayed and in some cases denied to the Australian farming sector due to disruptions with the unnecessary relocation APVMA shift from Canberra.
CEO Matthew Cossey said the considerable operational disruption created by the unnecessary relocation of the APVMA would severely impact farmer access to crucial agricultural products.
“This will have a significant negative impact on national agricultural productivity,” he said.
“It is also disappointing that the announcement of the APVMA relocation to Armidale in the Minister’s electorate has been made outside of the cost benefit analysis process that was announced just two months ago, which is yet to be completed or publicly released.
“Small economic benefits to the Minister’s electorate from the relocation of the APVMA to Armidale pales in significance to the net loss to Australia’s agricultural productivity that this relocation will cause.
“There’s no point trying to dress this up as having any real benefit to the APVMA’s operations.”
The National Farmers’ Federation said the relocation may not be in the best interests of agriculture and called for assurances the APVMA move would not negatively impact the farm sector.
NFF also questioned why the announcement by Mr Joyce arrived ahead of a formal review conducted by consultancy firm EY that it participated in.
NFF President Brent Finlay said his organisation had always been concerned moving the APVMA would result in a loss of highly specific and skilled regulatory scientists and damage organisational continuity, which would delay the already difficult registration process for new pesticides and medicines.
“The NFF welcomed the White Paper commitment of $20 million to streamline chemical and pesticide registrations, but APVMA is currently completing only 51 per cent of applications for pesticides on time,” he said.
“We have real concerns this would slow further with a change in the Authority’s address.”
Mr Finlay said any delays in taking new and approved AgVet products to market would be incredibly damaging to farm businesses across Australia given ongoing issues including chemical resistance in pests and weeds.
“While we acknowledge the Coalition’s commitment of $24.1m to support the relocation, we want the findings of the EY review made available so that we can clearly see this move will not impact on approval processes and timeframes,” he said.
“We are also interested to see where this funding has been drawn from.
“The NFF supports the building of stronger regions but it must be ensured this is undertaken strategically as part of an evidence-driven plan to build the entire economy.”
The APVMA declined to comment.
Shadow Agriculture Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said Mr Joyce had left “the reservation” by announcing the relocation would go ahead despite the cost-benefit analysis being incomplete.
He said it was well known that the APVMA would lose the majority of its professional staff if this forced relocation took place.
“This will be a disaster for our farmers who will lose access to critically important crop protection chemicals and animal medicines,” he said.
“It is also clear Barnaby Joyce made the announcement today to save himself in New England.
“The question that must now be answered is: did Malcolm Turnbull approve the announcement, or has the Coalition split because of Barnaby Joyce’s desperation to hold his seat?”
New England candidate and former independent MP Tony Windsor welcomed the announcement that up to 175 jobs would be created for Armidale with the APVMA relocation but questioned why the announcement was made in the middle of an election campaign, and not in the recent 2016 Federal Budget.
Mr Windsor said it was “another in a long line of announcements made which are contingent on getting people’s vote”.
“I welcome the announcement by Mr. Joyce that up to 175 new jobs will be created in Armidale and trust that the Department will have a plan for ensuring expert knowledge is retained,” he said.
“Mr. Joyce needs to be very clear; is this a guarantee regardless of whether he wins re-election, or is it another ‘vote for me or else’ inducement to voters?”
Mr Joyce said the ALP had promised to reverse the relocation plan if re-elected and also took a thinly veiled swipe, at Mr Windsor.
“Others can only comment because they can’t deliver - they can just become a suggestion box or complain box whichever is their whim on the day,” he said.
“Canberra is a great city with 380,000 people and is big enough and vibrant enough to get ahead under its own steam and it is.”
Mr Cossey said CropLife strongly supported the establishment of a Centre of Excellence at the UNE.
But he said it would be better served by relocating policy divisions of the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources to Armidale, which could involve more staff and ironically deliver a greater economic impact, rather than the relocation of the APVMA.
“We now call on the Minister to consider this as a more viable option for Armidale, rural and regional Australia and the national farming sector,” he said.
“We acknowledge Minister Joyce for being a strong voice for his electorate; however, there are better ways to support rural and regional centres without impacting negatively on national agricultural productivity and farmers across the country.”
Professor Annabelle Duncan from UNE said having the APVMA co-located with the University presented mutual advantages that would help boost agricultural productivity which they’d achieved to the tune of $14-15 billion for sheep and beef genetics.
Professor Duncan said the University was also setting up course in regulatory science that would support the APVMA’s capacity.
NSW State MP Adam Marshall said relocating the APVMA to Armidale was another important boost for a city coming out of a long sleep.
“This announcement is a massive vote of confidence, not just in UNE and Armidale, but in our entire region,” he said.
Mr Joyce said in addition to the APVMA, the Coalition would commence formal consultations with other government agencies to examine relocation options to other regional towns and cities where there are strong grounds for collaboration with industry.
The Murray Darling Basin Authority is based in Canberra and has also been talked about in recent times as a potential relocation target.
Mr Joyce said the Coalition would provide $24.1 million to support the APVMA relocation, to ensure its chemical approvals processes were not impacted by the move.
“Since coming to office, the Coalition has allocated $28.4m to streamline agricultural and veterinary chemicals regulations and improve farmers’ access to the chemicals they need to become more productive and profitable,” he said.
“The Coalition has delivered a $9.1m reduction in ag-vet chemical red tape and importantly, we have abolished the former Labor government’s destructive and duplicative re-registration laws which would have seen many common farm chemicals lost to the Australian market.”
Mid last year, the Coalition commenced agency relocations, moving the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) to Wagga Wagga and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) into various regional centres while retaining a central Canberra agency.
The APVMA will join existing centres at the UNE, including the Australian Sheep Industry Cooperative Research Centre, Australian Poultry CRC, the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law, the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit and Meat and Livestock Australia’s Red Meat Innovation Unit, the Institute for Rural Futures, and the National Centre of Science, Information and Communication Technology and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia.
Mr Joyce said co-locating the APVMA with the UNE would create a centre of excellence that would also attract other jobs.
“When you’re in the US you don’t just go to Washington to talk to people about any aspect of agriculture,” he said.
“You go to Minneapolis-Saint Paul, you go to Knoxville in Tennessee, you go to the University of Georgia for things such as beef genetics.
“And we’re going to make sure that in our nation, that we have areas that are centres excellence - centres of excellence in areas of agriculture.
“We’ve always believed especially within the National Party about the aspect of decentralisation – doing as much as possible to move things out to regional areas.
“Here’s another statement of that action.”