Residents of the nation are no strangers to Canberra-bashing. It's generally easy to shake off inaccurate criticisms, but in the past week the Nationals have continually used bashing the capital as a way to play to marginal seats and distract away from the mess that is their decentralisation policy.
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On Monday, Agriculture Minister David Littleproud crowed about the success of the controversial move of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to Armidale in NSW, the electorate of his predecessor Barnaby Joyce.
"The Nationals have taken heat over decentralisation from narrow minded Canberra-bubble types and we couldn’t care less. Decentralisation is the right thing to do," Mr Littleproud said.
"The Canberra Times can run distortionary stories about us and decentralisation all it likes. The fact is rural and capital city Australians are both keen as mustard for government jobs in the country."
The move is almost complete, with the permanent office set to open in the new year. If the measure of success is job applications, the APVMA has plenty.
According to the minister, 79 applications from scientists from all over the country, including those from capital cities, for 19 jobs, is a sign that many people want to move to the regions.
The agency had received almost 300 applications for between 15 and 40 jobs, with 110 coming from Armidale and surrounding areas.
While the numbers sound impressive, it glosses over the fact that around half the agency's headcount will have turned over by the time the move is complete.
Of the more than 50 staff already in Armidale, just eight have moved from Canberra, with six more by the end of the year, and another eight to move from the capital by June.
That's 22 staff confirmed to move, with another 14 still to make up their minds - in the end, less than a quarter of the 190 staff will move to Armidale. Around 40 staff will stay in Canberra, with those remaining who haven't already quit the agency to be offered redundancies or redeployment.
The agency has been torn apart and built up again in order to meet a political objective. The agency's own boss Chris Parker told a Senate inquiry last week the move had positives, but that it had been disruptive and the departure of staff had affected the agency's productivity.
On Friday when the Nationals announced a new Australian Maritime Safety Authority office would be opened in Coffs Harbour, again in a marginal electorate, the party's leader Michael McCormack sang from the anti-Canberra play book.
While Mr McCormack said he hadn't seen any boats or ships in Canberra, his announcement showed the party had in part learnt from the lessons of the disruptive APVMA move. Instead of forcibly moving people from Canberra to a new city, the majority of the jobs to be at the new regional headquarters will be new roles.
The decentralisation policy has been expensive, with little more than 1000 jobs moving to various non-metro parts of the country. It is not distortionary to interrogate the costs and benefits of a policy which impacts the effectiveness of our government's ability to develop policy, regulate and deliver services.
