Armidale was my home for more than eight years while Canberra has been home since 1993. The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce, is right about the delights of Armidale, a cultivated city of about 24,000 people in northern NSW. It does have cafes, schools, cathedrals, an established university, an excellent art gallery and many other things that make living there a very pleasant experience.
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But that totally misses the point and should not be the issue in the on-going controversy about Joyce's decision to relocate the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority away from the national capital to a regional city. Even raising this aspect of Armidale reinforces a widespread perception of Canberrans as spoilt brats who make up a public service-oriented elite devoted to cafe latte and chardonnay.
Most regional cities are sophisticated places in which you can get a good cup of coffee. In many ways, life in Armidale is not that different to life in Canberra. One community is just 15 times bigger than the other. Citizens in both places enjoy the outdoor life and some commute from blocks, farms and nearby smaller towns for city employment. Some children go to the local university but many leave home for the bigger cities.
There are some limitations to life in a regional city that should not be underestimated however. One is fewer appropriate professional employment opportunities for the partners of those who move there. This will be one important consideration for the families of those whom Joyce wants to relocate.
The similarities go further. Both cities lie in the middle of diverse farming communities. If that is necessary for the work of the scientific staff of the authority, which is highly doubtful anyway, then that is not a mark against Canberra at all or a plus for Armidale. Canberra really is a bush capital. There is no comparison between Canberra and Sydney, as the NSW state capital, when it comes to arguments about decentralisation of government departments and authorities with rural interests. Canberra wins hands down.
Armidale itself is actually more isolated from the wider rural community than the much bigger regional city of Tamworth, also in Joyce's electorate, which sees itself as much more typical of rural Australia than its "toffy" neighbour. Tamworth is on the sunburnt plains, while Armidale, with a climate not unlike Canberra, is up on the tablelands. The people of Tamworth, home of country music, are fierce competitors of Armidale and would consider themselves to have quite a different character and ethos.
Regional cities such as Tamworth and Armidale strive to grow by attracting new industries, public and private. In recent times Armidale, though it has a long history of supporting the National party and has been home to many government ministers, has suffered from state Coalition governments taking public services away as part of administrative reorganisation of service delivery to coastal regional centres such as Lismore and Newcastle.
As a consequence the Nationals lost ground to Independents at both the state and federal level because of voter dissatisfaction. The best known Independent elected was Joyce's now arch-rival Tony Windsor at first state and then federal level. But the Nationals also lost the seat of Armidale to another Independent, Richard Torbay, who was briefly pre-selected by the Nationals to take on Windsor in New England before resigning in disgrace.
Thus, the Nationals have work to do to show that they can deliver services and represent locals as well as Windsor and Torbay. That is one driver behind Joyce's move.
Another motivation is the traditional commitment to decentralisation by the Nationals and their predecessor, the Country Party. Such a goal was behind former Country Party leader Sir John McEwen's advocacy of protection for regional and rural industries. This was economic development behind tariff walls, part of the original Australian Settlement, including Protection All Round. McEwen and the Country Party had lost that battle by the 1970s to the forces of free trade and open markets. The political consequence was the vulnerability of the Country Party/Nationals to rural Independents, such as Bob Katter, and new minor parties preaching protectionism like One Nation.
Joyce, as party leader, must show the way to his party colleagues. Decentralisation of the Commonwealth government remains a possible weapon for him even when market forces hamper much decentralisation of the private sector.
This current skirmish may not be the last. Whoever speaks for Canberra, whether it is the ACT government and Opposition or our local federal MPs, must have convincing arguments at their disposal. However, if advocacy is left to them it may fail as it will be dismissed as special pleading. The case for Canberra as the national capital should be made by senior members of the government, based elsewhere, with a broad vision for the nation.
There are two ways to counter those who want to shift departments and agencies away from Canberra. The first is by financial cost benefit analysis on a case by case basis. The numbers in this case seem to be conclusive. This will be an expensive as well as a disruptive move in terms of relocation costs.
The more telling counter is to stress the impact of such moves on good governance and the consequences for a career public service. This involves appreciating the undoubted value in a physical concentration of the nation's administrative leadership in the national capital. Working via the internet is no substitute. It also involves recognising the way middle level public service careers depend on the networks and career opportunities that physical proximity to other departments and agencies in Canberra brings.
John Warhurst is an emeritus professor of political science at the Australian National University. He was professor of politics at the University of New England from 1985 to 1993.
