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Barnaby Joyce's determination to move the pesticides authority to the heart of his New England electorate has baffled Canberrans. It's been baffling even by Joyce's standards. The eye-watering waste of public money, the middle finger stuck up at proper process, the wrecking of the work of an important agency, the bastardry to the public servants involved and their families, the shameless nature of the pork barrel; it's all baffling. It descended even further into farce on Tuesday, when it was revealed that Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority bosses are camping out in McDonald's in Armidale, using the burger joint's free Wi-Fi to carry out their work. People are aghast. But, if you look at it another way, it begins to make more sense. Joyce's actions are those of a desperate man, frantic with fear of Pauline Hanson. So he should be. Everywhere you look, Hanson's One Nation threatens Joyce's Nationals. Yes, there are other populist outfits nipping at the Nationals' heels, with the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party inflicting an historic humiliation on the Nationals at last year's Orange by-election for the NSW state Parliament. But it's Hanson's group that looms as the clear and present danger. In Western Australia, the local Liberals' preference deal with Hanson's party sparked panic for the Nationals everywhere. In Queensland, One Nation is not content with taking votes from the Nationals; it's now pinching its MPs, too. Four sitting and former LNP members have fled the sinking ship since October and hitched their colours to Hanson's mast. Even in a party notorious for its elected members going rogue, this is serious. The LNP's mouthiest MP, George Christensen, is running neck and neck with One Nation in his north Queensland electorate, according to the latest polling. Christensen's tactics, of sucking up to one Nation and hinting at defection if the Coalition doesn't ape One Nation policies, is a far cry from the approach taken by Nationals big men Tim Fischer, John Anderson and Ron Boswell when they were defending their turf against Hanson's first surge in the 1990s. To see why One Nation poses such a threat, look at Inverell, about 1½ hours down the road from Armidale. When The Australian newspaper took the temperature this week of the One Nation fever sweeping the bush, the town was featured as a district where the fringe outfit polled more than 10 per cent in the Senate vote at the 2016 election. That's a fair chunk of Barnaby's New England constituents who preferred One Nation to the Deputy Prime Minister's operation, and it's kind of understandable. Average yearly incomes had dropped – dropped – by nearly 3 per cent to less then $40,000 around Inverell in the seven years before the election, while reliance on the dole in the district soared by 7 per cent between 2013 and 2016. Considering Joyce has been in Canberra supposedly championing the interests of the people of Inverell since 2010, The Australian's research neatly illustrates the Nationals' problem. Jobs and growth? You've got to be kidding me. Around the nation, similar pictures are emerging. The Nationals have represented some of Australia's poorest communities for generations and some of those places have been dead broke for a long time. People are starting to put two and two together, and One Nation are ready to capitalise. Barnaby won New England comfortably last year, but many of his colleagues are in desperate straits. The penny has dropped for Joyce and his colleagues: muttering things about "standing up for the bush" isn't washing any more with many of the communities that have voted Nationals for generations, but received little or nothing in return. So back to the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority and the other Canberra-based agricultural agencies whose staff have been told to pack their bags. Here's what Christensen had to say this week about those in his electorate thinking of voting One Nation: "We have to connect with these people and start delivering on issues that matters to them." Jobs matter to them and the Nationals, having failed to attract those jobs through fair means, are now intent on plundering employment opportunities from other parts of the nation. In other news from Tuesday's Senate estimates hearing in Canberra, agricultural agencies were forced by Nationals senators to justify their presences in capital cities, obviously thinking they're onto a winner. But Why would you do the hard work of lobbying for infrastructure, education and other investments that would really guarantee the long-term viability of the regions when you can simply use the advantage of incumbency to move public service departments around the country against their will? It's not political genius but it's the best the lazy Nationals have been able to think up. The Liberals know this is a policy nightmare and a scandalous waste of money but are too politically weak to do anything about it. So the grab for public service jobs is bad for the nation, bad for Canberra and a nightmare for the families, who are expected to uproot their lives in the cause of saving Joyce's political skin. Bad for Hanson and One Nation? We'll have to wait and see. Noel Towell is chief public service reporter at The Canberra Times.

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