Estimates hearing reveals possible costs of relocating Commonwealth agencies to regional Australia
/ By Anna VidotEstimates hearings have revealed it could cost more than $44 million to relocate the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority and three research and development agencies to regional Australia.
The Rural Affairs Committee also heard that a survey of agency staff revealed that three-quarters of them are not keen to leave Canberra.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce and his department have begun to formally consult the agencies and rural industries about the relocation proposal, outlined in the 2015 budget. The agencies' responses are expected by the middle of the year.
Officials told the hearing the full cost of moving the APVMA to either Armidale in northern New South Wales or Toowoomba in southern Queensland had not been estimated, because two possible locations were under active consideration. However, just the cost to break the agency's current Canberra lease could be as high as $6.4 million.
The Commonwealth would be required to fund the full cost of moving the APVMA.
The RDCs, senators were told, would be expected to pay the full cost of their moves themselves.
The Minister has proposed moving the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) to Wagga Wagga in the southern NSW Riverina.
The department estimates the cost of that move could be $31.2 million, including $12.8 million as the "worst case scenario" amount it might cost to break a 10-year lease the GRDC recently signed in Canberra.
Moving the Fisheries RDC to Hobart could cost $4 million, the department said.
It could cost $2.5 million to move the smaller Rural Industries RDC (RIRDC) to Albury-Wodonga on the Murray River.
The RDCs are jointly funded by industry levies, matched by the Commonwealth.
Asked about the impact on grains, fisheries and rural industries research and development, if those agencies had to cover the cost of leaving the capital, acting Agriculture Department secretary Philip Glyde said the department was looking to make the moves as cost-effective as possible.
"If you look at this over the 10-year period, all the costs are upfront and the benefits occur down the road as the institutions are established in these regions and they continue to operate as before," he told the hearing.
"The costs look large, but when you look at what the task is that they're performing over this 10-year period, and that there will inevitably be this transition upfront, then they're not huge.
"I'm not wanting to dismiss that, because these are grower levies and they're matched [by government] levies as well.
"For the RDCs themselves, this will be an expense to them. So obviously that's another incentive for both the RDC and the department to make sure we manage this transition as cost-effectively as we can."
Labor Senator Doug Cameron went on the offensive over the planned relocations, asking the Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Senator Richard Colbeck, how the plans stacked up in the public interest.
"What's in the national interest? Has a cost-benefit analysis been done? How can you justify $40 million-plus in public money being spent for a pork barrel for the Coalition?" Senator Cameron asked.
"It's $40 million so you [Senator Colbeck] can go down to Tasmania and Minister Joyce can go to Armidale [in his electorate of New England] and say, 'look what I've got for you'."
Senator Colbeck said he "completely rejects that characterisation" of the proposal.
"You can make your political overlay to it all you like, Senator. I reject that," Senator Colbeck said, noting the Coalition went to the election promising to move parts of the government to regional Australia, "where we could."
"We're continuing down that process. The minister has written to the agencies involved asking them to come back to him within a timeframe so that he can get the information and make a final decision.
"There has been no final decision made at this point in time, but a preference has been expressed."