It wasn't long after Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce announced the home of the government's new regional investment agency before accusations of pork barrelling went flying.
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After Orange emerged as the base for the Regional Investment Corporation, designed to oversee delivery of funds to farmers, eyebrows were raised given recent NSW political history.
The city is at the heart of an electorate the Nationals lost in a state by-election last November after a 69-year hold on power, drawing legitimate questions about the reasons behind the government's decision to host the agency there.
After the controversial decision to uproot the national pesticides authority from Canberra to Armidale, in Mr Joyce's New England electorate, the public would be justified in being cynical about the underlying motives of the Nationals' decentralisation agenda.
Whether it's a legitimate attempt to revitalise struggling country towns, or a ploy to shore up votes against One Nation and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, is cast into doubt when uncertainty shrouds the steps taken to choose the cities hosting government agencies.
Among the few cities the Coalition decided were eligible to host the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, is it only a coincidence that Mr Joyce's electorate emerged the winner?
Why was Orange judged a better host for a national regional investment agency, compared to Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst, Bendigo, Lithgow, Toowoomba and Wagga Wagga?
The framework used by the government to decide isn't clear, considering Mr Joyce's office could not describe one when asked on Tuesday.
It's an unjustifiably opaque process given the substantial public spending involved - $28 million for the RIC - and the considerable benefits the host city stands to gain.
Rivals to Orange's claim on the agency - neighbouring city Bathurst, for instance - deserve to know where they fell down in the selection process.
The uncertainty around the government's decisions about smaller agencies like the RIC and APVMA needs resolving if it seriously intends to prosecute its case for decentralisation.
For all their claims they are advocating the bush, the Nationals leave themselves open to charges of recklessness and self-interest without a considered, researched and systematic approach to moving public servants into the country.
They'll have a hard time convincing staff to leave Canberra, and building voter trust in what is already a controversial plan.
Aside from public confidence in the decentralisation agenda, the government needs to change tack if it wants the plan to work.
Without a competitive tender process, and a framework guiding decisions, its quest to create more jobs in regional towns is at greater risk of failure.
It needs to match agencies properly with towns, which should be assessed for infrastructure, expertise, workforce, liveability, industries and distance in case they are married unhappily to a team of public servants unable to do their jobs properly.
The Nationals should have worked these details out already. The decentralisation push is off to a troubled enough start without these mistakes.
