- RELATED: Barnaby barks back over APVMA
BARNABY Joyce’s relocation of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to Armidale is behind the regulator’s poor audit results, according to Labor’s agricultural spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon.
Last week, Mr Joyce seized on a performance National Audit Office review of the agvet chemical regulator, which criticised the agency’s progress in implementing reforms, introduced by the Coalition in 2014, to reduce red tape and costs to industry.
“It’s past time Barnaby Joyce stood up and took responsibility for his reckless actions which has undermined the performance of the APVMA,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
Mr Fitzgibbon has accused Mr Joyce of pork barrelling his New England electorate with his 2016 election commitment to move the APVMA to Armidale, which has precipitated a round of senior staff departures.
According to the Audit Office, the APVMA had been too slow in the broad reform of switching to risk based assessments and lacked oversight of a range of individual reform projects, with more than 43 per cent of assessment decisions dragging beyond the statutory timeframe.
“This audit finds significant weaknesses in how the APVMA has implemented the government’s 2014 agvet chemical legislative reforms and says the business practices, systems, risk management and governance arrangements employed by the agency are just not good enough,” Mr Joyce said.
Mr Fitzgibbon said Mr Joyce’s relocation plan was to blame for the negative review results.
“The findings of the report appear to point the finger at the Authority claiming it did not consider the risks associated with the proposed relocation. But the fact is this is all Barnaby Joyce’s making,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
“Through the recent Senate inquiry into the Government Policy Order which is forcing the APVMA to be relocated, it was revealed that the former chief executive wrote to the Minister on July 31 2015, advising that she was unable to support the current proposal to relocate the APVMA to either Toowoomba or Armidale at that time due to the magnitude of expected losses of expertise and experience.”
Mr Fitzgibbon said Mr Joyce ignored warnings over the loss of corporate knowledge in the agency.
“The fact is the APVMA has been dealing with the relocation crisis since it was announced by Barnaby Joyce in 2015,” he said.
Industry representative body Animal Medicines Australia (AMA) echoed the Audit Office findings.
“The report confirmed that operational efficiencies have not been achieved. It confirms industry’s experience that business processes, systems, and governance are not up to the standard expected,” AMA executive director Ben Stapley said.
“This has resulted in a lost opportunity to deliver the improvements in transparency, predictability and consistency that industry seeks.”