Now I have heard everything! The National Party has now stated that the poor performance by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) will be fixed by moving it to Armidale! This is supposedly to assist solving problems recruiting qualified scientists. This would be hilarious if it wasn’t so disgraceful1.
The initial reason Barnaby Joyce gave for moving the APVMA to Armidale was to spread government largesse to regional Australia. This is true; it is called pork barrelling. He also said later that it was to develop stronger links with rural industries. This was a lie. The APVMA works most closely with chemical and pharmaceutical companies, not farmers. Even if it did work with farmers, it is transparently dishonest for Joyce to believe it needed to be in his own electorate2, as other electorates were considered more appropriate. After all, it is now even further away from farms in Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.
For the Nationals to now say that the move to Armidale is required to boost performance, when it was the mooted move to Armidale which caused people to leave the organisation and led to its performance dropping off, is beyond the pale.
It is symptomatic of how much disdain these politicians have for the taxpayers, that they would waste up to two hundred million dollars just to bolster Joyce’s future electoral chances. It also clearly demonstrates why politics in this country has decayed to a game the politicians play where the only real concern is what’s in it for them.
Sources
- http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/armidale-move-will-fix-apvma-nationals-20170613-gwpvq6.html
- http://www.blotreport.com/australian-politics/pork-barrel-joyce/
Backward hicks trying to justify an arbitrary, unnecessary, expensive, inefficient decision based on nothing more than Joyce’s whims. It shouldn’t be forgotten that these irrelevant dopes regularly took the Labor govt to task for its failure to consult and provide detailed justifications for a range of decisions. If hypocrisy had value they’d be wealthy – but still dunderheads. Corruption has many forms and pork barreling is just one in vogue in Australian politics, particularly on the conservative side. The sooner we get a federal ICAC the better.
Jon,
We are in definite need of a federal corruption watchdog. However, both sides of politics are afraid of what it will uncover, especially in laundering property developer money through the federal branches to the NSW branches, where accepting money from property developers is illegal.