AFTER romping home in New England last year in one of the largest swings in Australian political history, Barnaby Joyce the master of the mixed metaphor invoked a typically florid description of the job ahead.
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The change of government, he said, was like buying a property in disrepair "with fences down, weed infestations and run-down cattle and knowing now you have to start the hard work and fix it up again".
He also vowed to be a champion for regional Australia, franking the remarks earlier this year by announcing he would open a ministerial office in Armidale.
And if there were any lingering doubts Mr Joyce was committed to shifting bureaucrats to the bush, his latest push will have dispelled them.
Parts of a letter Mr Joyce penned, leaked to The Northern Daily Leader yesterday, reveal an ambitious plan to relocate key government agencies and hundreds of staff to regional areas.
Under the proposal, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) could move 178 of its staff to Armidale.
If successful (the move hinges on support from APVMA), it would be a fillip for the Armidale economy and a political masterstroke from Mr Joyce.
Predictably, Opposition agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon was hyperventilating with outrage at the prospect of sending Canberra jobs bush.
Yet one of his Labor predecessors, former ag minister Tony Burke, saw fit to open his ministerial office in the concrete jungle of Kogarah.
Mr Joyce should be commended for taking steps to create more jobs in regional centres.
Plenty of governments bang the decentralisation drum but few have delivered anything meaningful.
Armidale, fast becoming an agriculture research hub and equipped with a uni, three Co-operative Research Centres, a CSIRO and the NBN, would be as good a fit as anywhere for the relocated APVMA positions.
Jobs are the crankshaft of any economy and in an increasingly uncertain farming future, research and support will play an even more critical role.
Almost as important as the economic boost is the symbolic message it would send to oft-neglected regional centres that the government cares about our survival.