Few people have heard of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA). Fewer people know where it is or what it does.
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What they should know is that Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce’s determination to move the authority from Canberra to his electorate could pose a threat to our health, farm productivity and the natural environment.
The APVMA is a Commonwealth government regulator. Its main role is to ensure the chemicals farmers use to spray crops and the medicines given to farm and other animals are not harmful.
If you spray tomatoes or bindii at home, you’re using a chemical approved by the APVMA. When your council is spraying weeds, the APVMA is keen to ensure the health of a nearby water course or children’s park is not unacceptably affected by the runoff or spray drift.
Based in Canberra, the authority’s staff review data and, if satisfied chemicals are both safe and efficient, they register them for use for certain purposes.
Joyce has justified the move saying the APVMA would be close to a university that has expert knowledge in this area.
There is no undergraduate course that delivers all the qualifications and expertise needed to work for the APVMA as a regulatory scientist or lawyer. It’s a very specific area of expertise. According to the APVMA’s CEO, if these professionals are lost to the organisation, it will take up to seven years to rebuild the workforce.
Sadly, that’s what is about to happen. The professionals who work within the APVMA live in the Canberra region and typically have their children in local schools. More often than not, their partners work in Canberra. Staff surveys show only a small number of these 200-odd highly skilled people are prepared to make the move.
In addition to the $26 million of taxpayers’ money Barnaby Joyce intends to spend on his apparent pork barrel, he is now throwing more money at the project in the form of incentives for staff. It’s not likely to be enough to make them change their minds.
The chemicals and pharmaceutical companies aren’t happy either. Along with the peak farming groups, they have been highly critical of the move. So why is this happening?
Is it because Barnaby Joyce struggles to secure the votes he needs in Armidale to retain his seat in Parliament — the town he wants to host the APVMA? Is his party so desperate it would put human and animal health, and our environment at risk?
