Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, is finding it harder and harder to make a case for his relocation of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority from Canberra to Armidale.
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The scheme is one of the most blatant examples of pork barrelling in Australian politics in recent times.
The relocation was never about good governance, efficiency or synergies of any kind; it was, is and will always be, about Mr Joyce whose motivation is blindingly obvious.
On March 10 Tony Windsor ended years of speculation when he announced he would be recontesting his old seat against the deputy PM in the July 2 poll.
Mr Joyce, who had won New England by default in 2013 when Mr Windsor did not stand, was left in a bit of a funk at the prospect of a real fight. He started casting around for ways to rebalance the scales.
Ripping the APVMA out of Canberra, albeit at the cost of turning the lives of hundreds of families upside down and potentially stripping the authority of more than half its talent, was an obvious step.
He broke the news in June, reportedly off his own bat, and well ahead of the completion of the cost benefit analysis said to have been ordered by Malcolm Turnbull.
Voters outside New England were faced with the unedifying spectacle of the minister for agriculture, who also happened to be the deputy prime minister and leader of the junior coalition party, cherry-picking prizes from his portfolio to shore up his own electoral fortunes.
The voters who actually counted were sold the line they had a strong local member who could bring home the bacon.
The issue resurfaced on Sunday when, while being gently grilled by Barrie Cassidy, Mr Joyce repeatedly refused to release the cost benefit analysis which is now complete.
While he reaffirmed his commitment to making the move happen, disingenuously claiming the Turnbull Government had a mandate to do so, he must be asking if the game is worth the candle.
Mr Windsor has been seen off, by a handsome margin, and will be pushing 70 at the time of the next Federal election.
There has been no groundswell of popular support for the APVMA relocation with the National Farmers Federation actually opposed on the basis an effective agency would be badly disrupted by the loss of key staff as a result of the move.
A 2015 survey found more than half the workers would not leave Canberra in the event it went ahead.
Factor in a minimum $34 million bill and a problematic cost benefit analysis and this is starting to look like a fight the Turnbull government can't win and doesn't need to have.
The PM needs to tell Mr Joyce he has made a mistake and it is time to walk away.
