JOYCE SHOULD OWN GOVERNMENTS BS DECENTRALISATION POLICY

29 May 2018

Former Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, has delivered a damning critique on his own decentralisation policy.

The decentralisation talk by the National Party has been bigger than their hats but delivery has been minuscule.

On Budget night, the Government announced with much fanfare the outcome of months of internal work and destabilisation for Public Servants where six agencies would decentralise roles.

The fine detail, however, revealed this was only to be 98 jobs and only 16 of those would be moved to a regional centre.

The former Deputy Prime Minister has tried to distance himself from the Governments decentralisation plan - calling the policy out as BS and a silly game.

But we know it was Barnaby Joyce dressing pork barrelling up as decentralisation that has led to the policy failure.

Labor has always been sceptical about the Coalitions Decentralisation Policy which has not been matched with a commitment to maintain existing public sector jobs in the regions.

A report from think tank, the Australia Institute, analysed census data from 2011 to 2016, and estimated regional NSW alone was missing out on $500 million a year in foregone wages and salaries from the impact of this Governments downsizing policies.

The Budget announcement proved once and for all that the policy is a complete hoax on regional communities.

Its time for the National Party to admit its decentralisation policy is BS.