Baby alpacas unite agriculture warriors

There's one thing guaranteed to unite political warriors - baby animals.

Such was the bipartisanship inspired by a group of baby alpacas that Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce and his Labor counterpart Joel Fitzgibbon named the animals after each other: Joycie and Fitzy.

The political pair met their fleecy namesakes outside Parliament House in Canberra at the launch of National Alpaca Week on Thursday.

Little Joycie is actually a constituent in the minister's northern NSW electorate of New England.

Mr Joyce and Mr Fitzgibbon ran social media competitions to pick the names but in the end struck a backroom deal.