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Barnaby Joyce is danger to the health of Australia's 8.5 million family dogs, cats and other household pets, according to the nation's veterinary medicine industry group. Sick and injured pets will be denied access to life-saving medicines in the coming years as direct result of the Agriculture Minister's plans to move the federal pesticides authority from Canberra to a country town in Mr Joyce's northern NSW electorate, Animal Medicines Australia says. Mr Joyce has a record of high profile clashes with pet owners after he threatened Hollywood actor Johnny Depp's two dogs, Pistol and Boo, put down if the star did not remove them from Australia. Now the colourful minister is on a collision course with the owners of 4.8 million pet dogs, 3.9 million cats and other household pets with his determination to move the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority from Canberra to the New England town Armidale, according to Animal Medicines Australia. Mr Joyce has persisted with his plan in the face of almost universal condemnation, a cost-benefit analysis showing little or no economic benefits, the refusal of nearly all the APVMA's regulatory scientists to move and criticism from every industry group in the sector. The Senate voted on Thursday to refer the policy's highly unusual legal foundation to an inquiry. AMA Executive Director Ben Stapley added his voice to the chorus of opposition on Thursday, saying his group's members, manufacturers of medicines for farm and household animals, were dead-set against the APVMA's move to Armidale, fearing massive disruption to their business and a knock-on effect on end users. "Our members' products are approved by the APVMA before they hit the market," Mr Stapley said. "It's the one regulator that all of our members have day-to-day contact with, and all their marketing budgets, distributions plans, all of those things are reliant on getting timely and predictable decision out of the MPVMA. "The relocation is going to harm access to the latest veterinary medicines. "The uncertainty is now having an impact on the APVMA being able to recruit regulatory scientists, we know that they're losing a large number of them and we expect to see that having an impact o the performance of the agency. Mr Stapley says his members fear they could be forced by the regulatory vacuum created by the chaotic relocation to keep their products off the Australian market, denying potentially life-saving treatment to ailing family pets. He says the industry is very worried and pet owners should be too. But Mr Joyce said on Thursday that "decentralisation saved millions of dollars in rent, and moving jobs to regional towns offered housing affordability and a better environment for families." "The Nationals believe in decentralisation which is spreading job opportunities across Australia," the minister said. There were 4.8 million dogs and 3.9 million cats living in 6.3 million Australian households, according to a survey his organisation conducted in 2016. Labor and the Green voted in the Senate on Wednesday and both parties repeated their condemnation on Thursday of the relocations policy. "The decision to uproot the lives of APVMA staff and their families to the Member for New England's own electorate looks and smells a lot like pork barrelling, so it is important this issue is publicly and transparently examined at a Senate inquiry," Greens' Senator Rice said. Labor MP for Canberra Gai Brodtmann was equally scathing. "It's a disgrace the Turnbull Cabinet approved this absurd proposal in the first place," she said.

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