More than a dozen new fire ant nests have been detected in the Dennis Road area in Springwood, Logan City, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast in south-east Queensland: around 10km from Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Program headquarters at Berrinba. They threaten the safety of residents in their backyards, shoppers at shopping centres, school children in their playgrounds, spectators and players at sporting facilities, old people in the gardens of their aged care home and koalas in conservation areas. Springwood has been within Biosecurity Queensland’s fire ant program area of operations since 2001. Springwood has been infested for years and treated for years but, under Biosecurity Queensland's new $411.4 Ten Year Fire Ant Eradication Program 2017-27, was not targeted for planned treatment until 2021. As a result, Biosecurity Queensland has been swamped with many thousands of calls from the public living in long infested areas in Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, Redland and Gold Coast city areas. Since 2001, Biosecurity Queensland has wasted $500m chasing fire ants. Fire ants continue to spread and re-infest treated areas because Biosecurity Queensland’s hit and miss under-treatment of the infestation wastes money and bait and injecting insecticide into nests causes them to split and spread. Time for a Royal Commission 24th January 2020
More than a dozen new fire ant nests have been detected in the Dennis Road area in Springwood, Logan City, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast in south-east Queensland: about 10km from Fire Ant Program headquarters at Berrinba
Fire ant nests are hard to see. They look like a simple pile of dirt. But dozens of fire ants will aggressively attack and sting anybody or anything that accidentally stumbles onto their nest. Their sting is toxic enough to kill some people.
This fresh infestation of fire ants in Springwood threatens the safety of residents in their backyards, shoppers at shopping centres, school children in their playgrounds, spectators and players at sporting facilities, old people in the gardens in their aged care home and koalas in conservation areas.
Springwood has been within Biosecurity Queensland’s area of operations since the very beginning in 2001. Springwood has been infested with fire ants for years. Biosecurity Queensland has treated them for years. They are still there because of Biosecurity Queensland’s incompetence.
Springwood was not even targeted for any planned treatment until 2021 under Biosecurity Queensland’s new, $411.4m Ten Year Fire Eradication Program 2017- 2027.
Biosecurity Queensland’s focus has been on applying three rounds of bait, each year for two years, to parts of the Scenic Rim and Lockyer Valley regional areas on the western edge of the infestation. They intended to simply suppress any nests the public reported in the long infested areas in the east, like Springwood, by injecting them with insecticide.
The results are disastrous. Biosecurity Queensland has treated only a fraction of the area in the west it had planned to treat and has been swamped with thousands of reports of fire ant nests from the public in the east. By July 2019, Biosecurity Queensland had a backlog of 13,000 reports and were asking the public to be patient because it was taking them weeks and months to respond.
Fire ants continue to spread and re-infested treated areas because Biosecurity Queensland’s treatment regime is haphazard. Expert advice from the USA was to comprehensively treat the entire infestation, leaving no gaps, four times each season for three years. Biosecurity Queensland’s hit and miss under-treated of the infestation is just throwing good bait and good money after bad and letting fire ants spread.
Expert advice from the USA cautions against using the slow, expensive practice of injecting insecticide directly into nests because it is likely to cause the nests to split and spread.
Since 2001 Biosecurity Queensland has wasted over $500m of public money chasing fire ants. The infestation is now twelve times worse and fire ants are out of control. Time for a Royal Commission.