Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has flatly refused a Senate order to produce a key document on his plan to forcibly move 175 public servants from Canberra to the heart of Mr Joyce's electorate.
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A cost-benefit analysis on the move, produced by consultants Ernst and Young at a cost to taxpayers of $270,000, will remain under wraps despite an upper house vote in September requiring the minister to produce the document.
Mr Joyce's plan to move the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority from Canberra to Armidale has been controversial from the start, attracting criticism from the animal health industry, Labor, the Greens, the APVMA public servants themselves and their trade union.
But Mr Joyce is undeterred and in reply to the Senate's order to produce the document, the minister's upper house colleague Matt Canavan wrote to Senate President Stephen Parry saying the production of the documents was not going to happen.
"This report is helping inform the next steps of the move and contributing to the government's planning for the relocation," Senator Canavan wrote.
"Consistent with standard executive government practice and to maintain the confidentiality of the cabinet process, it is not appropriate to release the report or related material while the government is considering the matter."
Greens Senator Janet Rice, who moved the motion to produce the document last month, said the government's response "smelled".
"Mr Joyce wants to uproot the lives of nearly 200 staff and their families without proving it is worth the expense," Senator Rice.
"Trying to move nearly 200 staff and their families more than 700 kilometres and refusing to show whether it is worth the expense smells a lot like pork-barrelling."
