Writings: Biosecurity Queensland puts strict controls on fire ant carriers going inter-state but minimal controls on fire ant carriers not going inter-state

In December 2018, Biosecurity Queensland was applying strict controls to the movement of fire ant carriers like soil and mulch to inter-state destinations from 458 suburbs in south-east Queensland: up from 284 in 2016.

At the same time, Biosecurity Queensland was applying minimal controls to the movement of fire ant carriers, not destined for inter-state, from just 309 suburbs deemed to be inside the Fire Ant Biosecurity Zone.

To move fire ant carriers such as soil, mulch, animal manures, baled hay or straw, potted plants, turf, composted material, gravels and sands out of the infestation in south east Queensland to inter-state, States and Territories:  

• Deem any area within 5km of a known infestation to be infested: ie 458 suburbs. Biosecurity Queensland lists only 309 suburbs as infested.
• Demand all fire ant carriers leaving the infested zone are inspected and come with a biosecurity permit. Biosecurity Queensland collects fees from businesses to inspect fire ant carrier products destined for inter-state: over-and-above the >$450m it has received over the past seventeen years to run the fire ant program.

Biosecurity Queensland imposes minimal controls on the movement of fire ant carriers, not destined for inter-state, from the 309 suburbs in the Fire Ant Biosecurity Zone.  

• The public are required to inspect their own properties and report suspicious nests because Biosecurity Queensland disbanded its large team of biosecurity inspectors.
• The public can move fire ant carriers within the Fire Ant Biosecurity Zone without a permit or to a waste facility within the area, at their own expense.
• The public can move fire ant carriers outside the Fire Ant Biosecurity Zone, without a permit, if they move them within 24 hours of receiving them.

Since 2001, when fire ants were first detected in south-east Queensland, independent scientists have said the infestation is too well-entrenched to eradicate. They, and subsequent reviewers, advised putting tight controls on the movement of fire ant carriers to contain the infestation to a relatively small area.

Because the Commonwealth government will fund an eradication program but not a containment program, the Queensland government declared it would eradicate fire ants to access Commonwealth money.

The seventeen-year chase after the last fire ant to kill it has come at the expense of anything like a competent containment program.

Fire ant now infest islands in Moreton Bay, Redland Bay, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Logan and Ipswich City Council areas and the Lockyer Valley, Scenic Rim, Somerset and Moreton Bay regional areas: and the suburbs at ‘ground zero’ of the infestation in 2001, in Brisbane’s south-west, remain infested.

It is likely that an aggressive containment program from 2001 would have contained fire ants to a fraction of the >400,000ha they now infest and at a fraction of the $450m of public money wasted so far. 

It is time for a Parliamentary Inquiry into this colossal waste of public money and one of Australia’s worst ever biosecurity disasters.