Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

I note that the minister is going to take questions en bloc. I appreciate that, because it is going to save time and allow members greater opportunity to put questions to him. In addition to my question about plant biosecurity, I foreshadow that I am going to ask the minister questions about the Regional Investment Corporation, the APVMA and his ministerial office in Armidale. There will be others if time permits.

On the Regional Investment Corporation: Will it be obligatory for the chair and board members you are selecting to be based in Orange? Has any work been done to compare the cost of the Commonwealth's administering the farm concessional loans to the cost of having the states administer those loans, as is the case now? How many staff members does the minister expect to be working in Orange when the RIC is fully developed and operational?

On the APVMA: How do you explain the difference between the roughly 200 staff working at the APVMA now and the 150 staff that we are told at Senate estimates are expected to be working in Armidale when it is fully operational? Are they staff lost to the APVMA or are they staff working elsewhere—for example, from home in Canberra or McDonald's in Dubbo or whatever it might be? On 23 November, the minister wrote to the finance minister seeking agreement to additional funding for a digital strategy. Can you further expand on the digital strategy and on what you expect to be the cost of that digital strategy? What is the objective of the strategy?

On your Armidale office, Minister: I am trying to determine the extent to which the Armidale office is being used as a ministerial office. To determine that, I would like you to inform the House of how many agriculture stakeholder, water stakeholder—portfolio stakeholder—meetings you have had in that office in the last six months.

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