Sterle: APVMA relocation “absolute booby prize” for 2016

Senator Sterle - a long serving member and co-chair of the Senate’s Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee - believes farmers have suffered “mixed messages” on government policy in 2016 which has caused ongoing instability.

“It has been a bit of a shemozzle this year and I think uncertainty has been pumped through the agricultural industry,” he said.

“People will say ‘yeah he’s Labour and he’s always going to look for the bad stuff’ but unfortunately there has been way too much bad stuff to talk about.

“The backpacker tax was a disaster created wholly and solely by the government and it’s nothing new.

“This was around in the 2015 budget – they sat on it – then all of a sudden before the election the (Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce) came out and said, ‘watch this space’.

“I believe the previous (Tourism Minister) Richard Colbeck had been working his backside off to resolve the issue but unfortunately the minister and government were missing in action here.

“It should never have got to that point and what a disaster.

“Absolutely that was a shocker and no minister would ever want that on their resume but now minister Joyce has it on his.”

Senator Sterle said the “absolute booby prize” for 2016 had to be awarded for Minister Joyce’s decision to forge ahead with relocating the  Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) from Canberra to Armidale in the National party leader’s NSW electorate of New England.

He said the decision was made “without any economic reality” and despite the findings of a government commissioned cost-benefit analysis report.

Senator Sterle said his criticism wasn’t based on Armidale being a great place to live and stressed he supported decentralisation policies that made sense and benefitted regional communities.

He said he had no issue with decentralising parts of the Grains Research and Development Corporation and other RDCs out into the regions “where it counts”.

But he said the APVMA relocation - which has been forecast to cost 189 jobs in the first year according to the government’s cost-benefit analysis - would cause the sudden loss of a percentage of regulatory scientists who are critical to administering the efficient oversight and timely delivery of farm chemicals, while protecting biosecurity and the environment.

Of the APVMA’s employees, 100 are regulatory scientists and only about 10 of them have indicated, in submitting to staff surveys, a willingness to relocate.

The cost-benefit analysis report said in 2014-15 the APVMA had 2495 agriculture chemical applications and 1293 veterinary medicine applications, comprising of existing applications (from the previous period) and new applications received.

Senator Sterle said the evidence showed clearly that the relocation decision was “crazy”.

“Do we seriously think that we’re going to find 65 scientists in and around Armidale waiting for APVMA to move there? he said.

“This is just crazy - this is just crackers.

“I’ve even pleaded to the more sensible members of the Nationals saying to them, ‘for crying out loud, if Barnaby wants to pork barrel his electorate there are many other ways he could do it which we (Labor) would find hard to argue against’.

“I’m struggling to believe we are having this nonsense agreement that’s been going on for three years.”

Senator Sterle said people in the farm sector were already “screaming” at the APVMA which already suffers delays in ticking off on the use of farm chemicals.

“What is the wisdom here?” he said.

“I must be missing something - can someone please tell me what the benefits will be to agriculture by moving the APVMA?

“I’m bamboozled and it has to come down to being the dopiest decision….that I’ve ever, ever heard.

“I’m sure there will be an avalanche of other examples of dopiness but in terms of agriculture, this is a beauty.”

Senator Sterle said he understood Mr Joyce was committed to his constituency but the APVMA decision was “sheer stupidity”, driven by the minister’s refusal to listen to “any common sense”.

“I read a very interesting article saying if this was private enterprise, and not taxpayers’ dollars, and someone came up with this dopey idea to go and waste millions and millions of dollars of the company’s money and then run the real, reality of losing the majority of the staff who are super qualified scientists, the CEO would be moved on,” he said.

“But unfortunately in terms of the minister, nobody is grabbing him behind the scenes and saying ‘come on mate, use your common sense’.

“Put it this way, if that was his money, would he go out there and absolutely go against all of the economic common sense, to waste a couple of hundred million dollars to do this?

“To alienate the majority of staff and then to be told by the accountants that it’s actually a stupid idea because we’re going to lose money.

“I bet he wouldn’t mate and he’s an accountant too which makes it worse.”

Senator Sterle said he believed the dairy farm-gate pricing crisis that erupted mid-year was a “sleeper” issue that he was concerned would “unfortunately rear its ugly head next year”.

The government provided over $550 million in concessional loans, to support dairy farmers impacted by the sudden loss of income after milk processors down-graded late season profit forecasts but he wasn’t impressed with the response.

“Whether it’s the drought or the dairy industry being screwed or whatever, unfortunately the minister keeps coming up with these wacky, wacky announcements of ‘here’s some more money you can borrow’,” he said.

“But if you talk to farmers, and I’m always talking to farmers, they don’t want to borrow any more money because the debt’s just getting out of reach so I don’t see a lot of vision coming out of the government.”

But the WA Labor Senator and former truck driver said Labor’s election campaign and almost snatching victory from the Coalition was a stellar effort for 2016.

“I think it was an exemplary performance from Bill Shorten and the Labor party and it was beyond all expectations,” he said.

“That last week going into polling day every pundit and every commentator wrote Labor off and wiped Labor out, and gave them no chance but now it has based Labor in a very, very strong position to put forward our strong credentials as a quality opposition that would make a very, very quick transition to government.

“We’re ready to govern and we’re united and we’ve been leading the way.

“I’ve been around a little while now but from opposition we have come up with some serious conversations about our economy, we’ve got plans for what we want to do and Bill Shorten’s not sitting on his hands.

“He and Chris Bowen are going 100 miles per hour so I’m very comfortable.”

However, Senator Sterle said he was uncomfortable with the make-up of the new Senate with 11 crossbench members, increasing the number by three, following the double-dissolution election.

“With the greatest of respect it has gone form one show to another show,” he said.

“People think it’s great having all of these independents and that’s fine - they have cast their votes - but what is this costing our nation?

“For example, whether you support the way the backpacker tax issue went or not, just look at the final cost.

“What we now know is, the government can get through anything they want, but how are they going to pay for it?”