Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I was going to wait until the end of the day, but just to show that we do not hide behind any of this, I think it is important to deal with this issue. What frustrates me so much is that the member for Hunter, who knows full well that Premier Bob Carr moved the department of minerals to Maitland because of the economic development it would bring to that region. I commend former Premier Bob Carr for doing that. He was a person of vision, but now the Labor Party has become so insular and so myopic that the only thing they can think about developing is developing Canberra further. Canberra is a wonderful city—God bless Canberra! We are going to spend $100 million on this building, but the largesse of government deserves to be spread further and wider than just Canberra. This is why we want to create these centres of excellence so people in the rural science department of CSIRO, which is in Armidale, have the line of sight and interaction for a better outcome.

We have been having discussions with Matthew Cossey from CropLife, and he has related to me that he has become supportive of the process. He wants to be part of the process and he has become supportive of the process. This is what we do with our negotiations. We are not going to be completely militaristic about this. We are not trying to just send people out to the country. We work with people, and we are working with the department and with the peak industry bodies to make sure that this lands properly. I do not know what Senator Anne Ruston said, but it would have been a reflection of the fact that we are in discussions with CropLife and that Matthew Cossey has shown me that he is now supportive of the process and wants to be part of the process, and I hope that gives the member for Hunter the answer to his question.

In regard to socialising the move and who is left, I have been informed that the turnover is no different from what has been happening at any other time. In 2015-16, 48 people left APVMA—seven resigned, 19 transferred, seven retired and 15 completed their contract. From the people who provided a reason for departure, six of the 48—12.5 per cent—said relocation was an issue. Unless you say 12.5 per cent of the people who have actually moved on is somehow a disastrous number, you do not really have an argument. When you talk about revisiting the costs, we are going to make sure that we do this in the most effective way. Through the white paper, and through the process of running our department effectively, we have money put aside so that we can get this process happening. You would already have seen ads—I think there was one in the Financial Reviewto get this process moving. It is just like we will be doing with the movement of the Rural Industry Research and Development Corporation to Wagga and the FRDC down to Adelaide, where they actually have fish—there are not many fish in Lake Burley Griffin, apart from some carp, but we are going to deal with them as well later on. These are the sorts of things that an effective government does. It is such a great place to be, in a coalition government surrounded by colleagues who have an absolute passion—even those from Hunters Hill—for making sure that they are part of this nation's second largest export after iron ore, which is agricultural exports.

The honourable member went through the cost-benefit analysis. They always grab these things as if they are a smoking gun—'It's Watergate!' Basically, the result of the cost-benefit analysis is neither massively for it nor massively against it—it is basically impartial but there is a slight benefit. There you go. I imagine it would have been the same result when New South Wales moved the minerals department to Maitland. Of course, Premier Bob Carr was a substantive person, a person of vision. He had the capacity to deal with issues such as that. That is what we will be doing here, because we are people of vision. We are the same people of vision who want to build dams, who believe in decentralisation, who believe in inland rail, who have put money on the table to seal the road from Laverton to Winton—we are the sort of people who have that vision to make our nation a stronger place. In the past Labor have had the vote in Armidale but, by gosh, they have lost it now.

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