Deputy Leader of the National Party Fiona Nash recently announced the Coalition government’s plans to embark on a decentralisation program to bring more government department jobs to regional areas.

During a National Press Club speech, Senator Nash said regional people deserved to reap the benefits of government departments and to pursue careers the same way as their city counterparts do.

But Labor’s Spokesperson for Rural and Regional Australia, Joel Fitzgibbon said without a proper assessment of costs, decentralisation risks being an expensive policy failure and an empty promise for regional and rural Australians.

“Capital city and regional residents alike need to know whether Senator Nash's National Press Club speech reflects Government policy or is just more political spin from the National’s,” he said.

“Labor fully supports job creation in regional Australia, and recommends the Government start by properly staffing existing Government Agency offices in regional areas, including Centrelink and the ATO.”

Fitzgibbon said Barnaby Joyce has already perpetrated a hoax on regional residents by providing a policy order which does no more than pork barrel his own electorate at great cost to taxpayers and farmers.

“The policy instrument Mr Joyce put in place to allow the move of APVMA without any parliamentary scrutiny only allows agencies to go to four cities in the country, Townsville, Rockhampton, Bathurst and very conveniently, Armidale,” he said.

“So they are promising something they can’t deliver when you move an agency knowing you are undermining its capacity to do its job then that is the most reckless form of pork barrelling.

“This is all politics it is classic pork barreling, this is all about trying to shore up their votes in the bush where they are under siege from One Nation, there is no way there are enough agencies in Canberra to fulfil all the false hope Senator Nash is giving to rural communities.”