Minister Furner told Parliament that residents of Redlands are reporting more and more fire ant nests because semi-rural properties are being developed into high density housing estates, development sites create suitable habitat for fire ants and there is ‘potential movement’ of fire ant carriers like soil and mulch into those new housing estates. More fake news from Minister Furner. The truth is, fire ants are out of control in Redlands because Redlands was abandoned under the new $411.4m Ten Year Fire Ant Eradication Program (2017-27) and because Biosecurity Queensland has abrogated its responsibility to control the movement of fire ant carriers like soil and mulch from infested areas to clean areas. Fire ants are now infesting dozens of housing estates in south-east Queensland for the same reasons: putting the safety of residents at risk. Time for Minister Furner to tell the truth and time for a Royal Commission to hold to account all Queensland Ministers of Agriculture responsible for Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Fiasco. 25th April 2019
Minister Furner told Parliament that residents of Redland City (known as just Redlands) are reporting more and more fire ant nests over recent years. This was because, he said, semi-rural properties in suburbs like Mount Cotton and Redland Bay are being developed into high density housing estates. He said development sites create suitable habitat for fire ants and there is ‘potential movement’ of fire ant carriers like soil, mulch and turf into new housing estates. More fake news from Minister Furner.
Fire ants are out of control in Redlands because it was abandoned under the new $411.4m Ten Year Fire Ant Eradication Program (2017-27) and because Biosecurity Queensland has abrogated its responsibility to control the movement of fire ant carriers like soil and mulch from infested areas to clean areas.
Redlands spread along the southern coast of Moreton Bay and is the most easterly area in south-east Queensland infested with fire ants. It has been infested since at least 2012.
The focus on the new Ten-Year Eradication Program (2017-27) was on the western edge of the infestation in the Lockyer Valley, 100km west of Redlands. Persistent infestations east of there were targeted for spot treatments. Biosecurity Queensland abandoned spot treatments in the east after just six months in 2017-18 because they had been swamped by 6,700 reports from the public and had injected 21,500 nests already.
The main cause of fire ant spreading is ‘human-assisted movement’: fire ants travelling long distances in truck or trailer loads of fire ant friendly materials such as soil, turf, mulch, baled hay or straw, animal manures, mining or quarry products, composts and potted plants out of infested areas and into clean areas. Biosecurity Queensland dumped the responsibility to contain the spread of fire ants onto the public with a ‘General Biosecurity Obligation.’ This means people and organisations living or working in fire ant biosecurity zones have a legal responsible to take all reasonable precautions to ensure they don’t spread fire ants: making the PUBLIC responsible for ensuring they do not buy-in or bring fire ant infested materials onto their properties.
At the same time, Biosecurity Queensland disbanded its large team of biosecurity inspectors who worked to identify potential high-risk enterprises within the Fire Ant Biosecurity Zones, helped them develop risk management plans to mitigate their risk of spreading fire ants, audited those plans on a regular basis and prosecuted those who breached fire ant containment regulations. At the Fire Ant Program Stakeholder Forum in May 2018 industry representatives wanted Biosecurity Queensland to re-instate the team of biosecurity inspectors, to re-introduce the use of Approved (Fire Ant) Risk Management Plans, to approve land development applications and to control the movement of fire ant carriers in and out of biosecurity zones.
A spokesperson for Minister Furner said it was important the public promptly reports any nests they suspect are fire ant nests. The public have responded magnificently. 80% of detections of new fire ant infestations are made by the public. But the public complains it takes Biosecurity Queensland weeks to respond to their reports: forcing them to attempt to treat nests themselves: risking getting stung, or causing the nest to split and spread.
For the same reasons, fire ants now infest dozens of new housing estates inside Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Biosecurity Zone: on the Gold Coast, in Logan and Ipswich cities, in the Moreton Bay region, on the Sunshine Coast, in Lowood in the Somerset region and Beaudesert in the Scenic Rim region. Biosecurity Queensland has abrogated its responsibility to control the movement of fire ants and is putting at risk the safety of residents of dozens of new housing estates.
Time for Minister Furner to tell the truth and time for a Royal Commission to hold to account all Queensland Ministers of Agriculture who have been responsible for Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Fiasco.