19 May 2020
Between 2001 and 2015, the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program, managed by Biosecurity Queensland, wasted $400m of public money chasing the last fire ant to eradicate it while the infestation blew out from 40,000ha to 400,000ha. In 2015, the Australian Agriculture Ministers’ Forum commissioned a review to determine the course fo...
Read MoreDr Craik told the ‘Beaudesert Times’ she was concerned that children spending more time in their gardens due to COVID-19 movement restrictions might be more likely to be stung by fire ants. So, she is advising families to treat their own properties at their own expense. Families in infested areas have been concerned about the safety of their ch...
Read MoreIn July 2019, Biosecurity Queensland targeted over 425 nests on a new housing estate in Park Ridge in Logan city for treatment. They were ‘thick as fleas on a dog.’ With a backlog of 6300 untreated nests in Logan in May 2019, and more by July, did they ever get treated? And how did they get there in the first place? Despite having an annual ...
Read MoreInQueensland reported on the Queensland Biosecurity Capability Review of 2015 which said Biosecurity Queensland does not have the capability to respond to current of future threats because it: • Cannot give funding agencies reasons to fund programs because it does not collect reliable and consistent performance data. • Cannot build relation...
Read MoreWith fire ants spreading out of control and re-infesting areas that have been treated for years, Biosecurity Queensland is dumping the costs and risks of treating fire ant nests onto the public. Have they thought this through? Will members of the public pay around $100 for 500g of bait or resort to ineffective or dangerous home remedies like...
Read MoreFresh fire ant nests have been found in Underwood Park after a $9m upgrade of a sporting fields, play grounds and other amenities in a major Logan City community facility. Fire ants threaten the safety of hundreds of children and adults, sporting teams and their spectators, Logan residents and visitors who come to enjoy the park. The area has b...
Read MoreMore 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, sc...
Read MoreThe National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program is an abject failure. Fire ants are out of control. The program has an annual budget of $42m to do three things: find fire ant nests, kill them and stop fire ants from spreading. Biosecurity Queensland is dumping the costs and responsibilities to do all three things onto the public. Biosec...
Read MoreThe facts are: Biosecurity Queensland failed to apply the three scheduled rounds of bait, over Priority Area 1, as prescribed by the $411.m Ten Year Fire Ant Eradication Program in both 2017 and 2018. Biosecurity Queensland completed only one and a half rounds of treatments in 2017-18 and was still completing the 2017-18 schedule in 2018-19. ...
Read MoreFarmers in parts of south-east Queensland infested for over 7 years are reporting fewer fire ant nests on their properties since Biosecurity Queensland started its aerial baiting program in 2017-18: sixteen years too late. In 2001, US fire ant experts said the only chance of containing and hopefully eradicating fire ants from SEQ was to treat t...
Read MoreGeneral Manager of the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program, Graeme Dudgeon, told the 'Gatton Star' the Somerset Region in south east Queensland is close to being fire ant free because the program is into its third season of treatment. Fact: Five areas in the Somerset Region were infested by June 2018. Nine were infested by Novem...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland has continually watered down its treatment regime: from twelve rounds of bait over three years, to just six rounds over two years, with no evidence that regime works. And they can’t even deliver on that. Under-treating fire ants does not kill them. It gives them the chance to spread. Between 2001-2016, the fire ant inf...
Read MoreThe National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program is an utter failure. It has cost $500m so far. The infestation is more than twelve times what it was when fire ants were first detected in south-east Queensland in 2001. Biosecurity Queensland has dumped the costs and responsibilities for finding fire ants, killing fire ants and containing ...
Read MoreAs Chair of the Fire Ant Program Scientific Advisory Panel in 2001, Dr Wylie knows that local and USA expert said the fire ant infestation in south-east Queensland was too entrenched to eradicate and said an aggressive containment and suppression program was the best and cheapest option. Dr Wylie knows that then Minister for Primary Industries, ...
Read MoreFire ants are out of control in south-east Queensland and Biosecurity Queensland is being swamped with thousands of reports of fire ant nests from the public. Even with an annual budget of $42.5m, Biosecurity Queensland can’t cope. Biosecurity Queensland is telling the public to be patient and is dumping the problem and the cost of treating f...
Read MoreTwo field managers, Operations and Communication and Engagement, consume 60% of the program’s annual budget of $42,425,416. Program reports document fairly well what that money was spend on: even if they don’t report what those activities achieved in terms of eradicating, containing and suppressing fire ants. The other 40% of the program’...
Read MoreThe Minister knows the 2001-16 Fire Ant Program was a disaster. It wasted $400m of public money trying to eradicate a well-entrenched infestation and made the infestation twelve times worse. The Minister knows the new $411m Ten-Year Eradication (2017-27) is a disaster because the program constantly fails to treat areas scheduled for treatment, ...
Read MoreThe Risk Management Committee says extreme, high and long-standing risks threaten Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Program. Extreme risk: The program has never had a functioning information system or produced timely and accurate performance data. High risks: Poor governance. The new Steering Committee approves work plans after the wor...
Read MoreA professional gardener, very familiar with fire ants, had to drive to Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Program Head Quarters in Berrinba to report huge nests on footpaths in Browns Plains: after listening to a recorded message on the program’s phone-in number for 30 minutes. Browns Plains has been infested for at least sixteen years, been...
Read MoreHundreds of fire ant nests are infesting virtually every front yard of a new housing estate in Ripley, Ipswich: as well as kid’s playgrounds, footpaths and shopping centre car parks. People carelessly or accidentally moving fire ants in fire ant carriers like soil, mulch, compost and turf is the main reason fire ants now infest 500,000ha of south...
Read MoreA huge shopping complex in Oxley, in Brisbane’s south-west, home to big name retailers Bunnings, The Good Guys, JB Hi Fi, Supercheap Auto, Macdonalds and others, is heavily infested with fire ants because of Biosecurity Queensland’s token gesture treatment program. Field staff are told to treat nests the public report, but not the dozens of unr...
Read MoreDrowning in a backlog of thousands of untreated nests, Biosecurity Queensland is now asking the public to do its own work and collect samples of potentially deadly fire ants: putting the public at unbelievable risk! Biosecurity Queensland relies on the public to report fire ant nests. And they do! They have found 80% of new nests. Biosecurity ...
Read MoreDogs trained by internationally certified trainers find 100% of their targets. Biosecurity Queensland’s detection dogs find 10%. Biosecurity Queensland only uses the dogs to check if treated nests have been killed. Program scientists say you can tell if a nest is still active just by poking it with a stick. Biosecurity Queensland has no evide...
Read MoreLarge fire ant nests on the flood plains of Oxley Creek in Corinda, in Brisbane’s south-west, threaten the safety of the band of volunteers who tend the Cliveden Avenue (nature) Reserve and the members and visitors to the Corinda Horse and Pony Club and the Oxley Golf Complex. Fire ants were first detected in the Oxley/Corinda area in 2001. ...
Read MoreThere is no warning sign on a large fire ant nest, on Oxley Road, in Brisbane’s south-west, opposite the golf driving range. It looks like an innocent pile of dirt, but dozens of aggressive fire ants will erupt from it to sting anyone who accidentally disturbs it. The Fire Ant Program General Manager told ABC radio in July 2018 the program was...
Read MoreA shopper at Bunnings in Oxley in Brisbane’s south-west was stung by fire ants last weekend when they disturbed one of fifteen fire ant nests in the DYI Warehouse car park. The shopper didn’t notice they were standing right next to a nest until the ants swarmed over their shoes. The shopper managed to brush the ants off, but got stung in th...
Read MoreAs of 31st May 2019, Biosecurity Queensland has a backlog of 8764 untreated fire ant nests across Brisbane, Gold Coast, Ipswich, Logan, Redlands cities and the Scenic Rim region. Biosecurity Queensland asks the public to check their properties and to report suspicious ants or nests. And they do! 80% of fire ant nests have been found by the publ...
Read MoreDr Wylie, Science Manager of Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Program, recently claimed in a television interview that Biosecurity Queensland had contained the spread of fire ants to 500,000ha of south-east Queensland and stopped fire ants from spreading 69,000,000 ha between Sydney, Mackay and Charleville. A study Biosecurity Queensland com...
Read MoreIn 2001, Minister Henry Palaszczuk rejected scientific advice to tightly contain the spread of fire ants in south-east Queensland to use national funding for an eradication program to create 400 jobs when Queensland’s unemployment rate was 8.5%. Biosecurity Queensland’s 2001-2016 Fire Ant Eradication Program was a gold mine for recruitment...
Read MoreMinister 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 esta...
Read MoreThe largest and most persistent fire ant infestation in south-east Queensland, what scientists called ‘ground zero’, is centred on the suburbs of Richlands, Wacol, Inala, Ellen Grove, Forest Lake, Darra, Goodna, Oxley and Gailes: about 10km south-west of Brisbane’s CBD. First detected in 2001, scientists said the infestation was too entren...
Read MoreIn a shocking attack on freedom of the press, on 5th April, staff in Minister Mark Furner’s office demanded a journalist take down a true, hard-hitting story about Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Fiasco. Minister Furner is the Queensland Minister for Agriculture responsible for the National Fire Ant Eradication Program. In November 2018, Min...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland has removed its long-time Operations Manager and recently appointed General Manager in a vain attempt to save the sinking ship which is the new $411.4m Ten Year Fire Ant Eradication Program 2017-27. And they should not be the last. In 2018-19 Biosecurity blew its $38m budget in seven months on • High turn-over of conta...
Read MoreIn the first year of Biosecurity Queensland’s new $411.4m Ten-Year Fire Ant Eradication Program, (on top of the $400m 2002-2017 program), fire ants breached Biosecurity Queensland’s operations seven more times: into Bridgeman Downs in Brisbane’s north, into the Beaudesert area south-west of Brisbane, into the Lowood area north-west of Brisban...
Read MoreA well-established fire ant infestation has been found in the Bromelton State Development Area. The Bromelton State Development Area, an area of 15,610ha near Beaudesert in the Scenic Rim region of south-east Queensland, was created to locate medium and large scale, high impact industries and give them access to the Brisbane to Sydney rail netw...
Read MoreThe first year of the new $411.4m Ten Year Fire Ant Eradication Program (2017-27) was a disaster! So far this year (2018-19) Biosecurity Queensland: • blew its $40m budget in just seven months, • can’t account for hundreds of bags of bait worth more $100,000. Yet, the program has enough non-operational officers and scientists, whose...
Read MoreThe first year of Biosecurity Queensland’s new Ten Year Fire Ant Eradication Program, 2017-18, was a disaster. Only one round of bait instead of three over most of the area targeted for treatment: a waste of $38m. The second year of the Ten Year Program, 2018-19, is worse. The program has blown its budget of $41m after just seven months: three m...
Read MoreA key strategy of Biosecurity Queensland’s new $411m Ten Year Fire Ant Eradication Program is to foster collaboration with the public. The General Manager of the Fire Ant Program came to a Community Forum in Gatton, in the Lockyer Valley, on the evening of 5th February with the clear intention of shutting down any criticism of the Program with hi...
Read MoreA Key Strategy of Biosecurity Queensland’s new $411.4m Ten Year Fire Ant Program is to collaborate with landowners. Biosecurity Queensland’s chaotic management of the program in the Lockyer Valley, south-east Queensland’s food bowl, does more to alienate farmers than gain their cooperation. Field staff, as ‘authorised persons’ under ...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland pays for 10% to the National Fire Ant Program but makes 100% of spending decisions: mostly on jobs for Queenslanders: not an incentive to eradicate fire ants. The Program Steering Committee is 100% responsible for Biosecurity Queensland using public money to create jobs for Queenslanders. Time for a Parliamentary Inqu...
Read MoreIn December 2018, Biosecurity Queensland was putting strict controls on the movement of fire ant carriers like soil and mulch, destined for inter-state, 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 inte...
Read MoreDozens of new housing estates in south-east Queensland have become infested in recent years because Biosecurity Queensland does not control the movement of fire ant carriers like soil and mulch out of infested areas. Biosecurity Queensland’s Work Plan for 2017-18 was to monitor and enforce controls on the movement of fire ant carriers outside ...
Read More2001 US experts said people carelessly or accidentally moving fire ants in truck-loads of soil, mulch or compost is the greatest threat. A program to tightly contain fire ants to a small area would likely have resulted in an infestation a fraction of what it is now and cost a fraction of the $440m+ wasted so far. Instead, Biosecurity Queensland di...
Read MoreQueensland Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Mark Furner, told ABC news the fire ant eradication program is ‘world class.’ Truth: The fire ant program has wasted $400m+ of public money and the infestation is now ten times worse. Truth: There is not a scrap of scientific evidence that eradicating fire ants from south-east Queensland...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland ignores persistent fire ant infestations in swamp areas (fire ants natural habitat) at a sporting facility in Brisbane’s south-west. The swamp drains into Oxley Creek then the Brisbane River. In 2017-18 Biosecurity Queensland was scheduled to treat persistent fire ant nests in Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan and Gold Coast cit...
Read MoreMr John Jordan, General Manager of the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program in south-east Queensland, told ABC radio on 31st October 2018 that the fire ant program has the science to eradicate fire ants and has eradicate some. Mr Jordan has no evidence fire ants have been eradicated because the program has no ‘proof of freedomâ...
Read MoreFire ants were first detected in Oxley, 10km south-west of the Brisbane CBD in 2001. Biosecurity Queensland has spent $400m, treated thousands of nests numerous times. They’re still there and still putting the public at risk of burning fire ant stings Biosecurity Queensland’s NEW $411m Ten Year Fire Ant Eradication Program (2017-2027) promis...
Read MoreANOTHER 300 fire ant nests have been found in Springfield Lakes, Ipswich, south-east Queensland. The area has been infested since 2001. Biosecurity Queensland has treated thousands of fire ant nests there, numerous times. They're still there. It is time to hold Biosecurity Queensland to account for failing to stop the spread of fire ants, f...
Read MoreThe new Ten-Year Plan emphasises the need to significantly increase the total area receiving multiple consecutive treatments of bait. It prescribes a ‘rolling’ strategy: starting with intensive treatment on the western and south-western edges of the Program’s operations in the Lockyer Valley and the Scenic Rim, then rolling intensive treatmen...
Read MoreA kids’ jumping castle was erected on a fire ant nest in a park in Loganholme because Biosecurity Queensland does not put signs on fire ant nests to warn the public of the dangers. There has been a lot of property development in Loganholme, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, recent years. It likely became infected in 2014 because Biosecurit...
Read MoreIn a vain attempt to counter damming criticism in 2010 that Biosecurity Queensland cannot prove its standard baiting program kills fire ants, the program’s science team published a paper in 2014 that claims its standard program kills fire ant nests while having minimal impact on local ants. Dishonestly, the paper DOES NOT say the standard bait...
Read MoreIt appears, in June 2018, a large team of field assistants reported a small property in Lanefield to be fire ant free, only for another team to find over fifty large nests on the same property a few days later. If so, is this evidence that Biosecurity Queensland’s operations are haphazard or evidence that Biosecurity Queensland’s reports ar...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland has not put a warning sign on a fire ant nest in public park in Cleveland, and has not informed the primary school next door of the danger. If Biosecurity Queensland can put a warning sign on fire ant nests in Mowbray Park East Brisbane and puts warning signs in infested construction sites, Biosecurity Queensland MUST put...
Read MoreJohn Jordan, General Manager of Biosecurity Queensland’s National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program told Steve Austin, ABC radio Brisbane: it’s OK to put up warning signs on fire ant nests on construction sites, but not in public parks. (This puts public safety at risk.) That he is ‘not surprised’ that, after seventeen year, f...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland leaves a fire ant nest, unmarked, in public park, in Rocklea in Brisbane’s south-west. More evidence that Biosecurity Queensland is putting public safety at risk. Rocklea has been infested with fire ants since 2001. Seventeen years and $400m of public money later, it STILL is. 22nd July 2018
Read MoreThe public have reported 70% of the fire ant nests found in south-east Queensland. But public support for the fire ant program is waning because Biosecurity Queensland takes weeks to follow-up and treat nests the public have reported. Biosecurity Queensland is now threatening the public with 6 months’ jail or a $97,425 fine if they don’...
Read MoreFacing a barrage of complaints from the public that Biosecurity Queensland leaves tagged fire ant nests untreated for weeks and weeks, Biosecurity Queensland is now removing ID tags from untreated nests and not tagging newly detected ones. More evidence Biosecurity Queensland is more interested in covering-up its failure than stopping the sprea...
Read MoreWhat Biosecurity Queensland tells the public about the 100% publicly funded National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program is not fully truthful. The public is entitled to know the truth about how Biosecurity Queensland spends their money. Biosecurity Queensland spent more than $400m from 2001 to 2017 and said it had contained fire ants ...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland tags a dozen HUGE fire ant nests in Browns Plains, evidence they have been there a long time, undetected and untreated: near a popular sporting facility but with no signage to warn the public, putting the public at risk: a colossal failure by Biosecurity Queensland. 13th June 2018
Read MoreIn May 2018, Biosecurity Queensland invited industry and community stakeholders from south-east Queensland to tell them how to better manage the fire ant program and better engage with stakeholders. They said the same thing reviewers have said over the years: that Biosecurity Queensland is too slow to respond to new detections, is not controlli...
Read MoreA new Steering Committee is 100% responsible for how Biosecurity Queensland spends another $411.4m of public money on the Fire Ant Program over the next ten years. But already it has approved Biosecurity Queensland’s Ten-Year Eradication Plan that has never been independently validated, performance-data-free progress reports and a top-heavy w...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland commissioned Monash University researchers to evaluate the eradication program. In 2013, they reported the southern and western boundaries of the (fire ant) invasion advanced at a steady rate, advancing towards the Gold Coast, Scenic Rim and Lockyer Valley, and there has always been an infested area outside Biosecurity Queens...
Read MoreIn April 2018, fire ants were found, again, at a sporting facility in Oxley, a suburb 10km south-west of Brisbane’s CBD – threatening the safety of the public. Biosecurity Queensland dumped the problem onto the facility to manage. Biosecurity did not put up any signage to warn the public, was slow to respond, forcing facility management to ...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland has NO restrictions on the movement of fire ant carriers like soil and mulch out of twenty-seven newly infested suburbs. Human assisted movement (people accidentally or carelessly moving fire ants in loads of soil or mulch or potted plants) is the main cause of the persistent spread of fire ants in south-east Queensland. ...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland has been given another $411m of public money to mount a new National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program for another ten years; on condition the program is more transparent and publicly accountable. But all the public gets is a three page summary of the ten year plan that got it the money. Why? Because the plan has ...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland is not telling the public the truth about the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program. It says it is eradicating fire ants when the truth is, fire ants are virtually out-of-control. The infestation in south-east Queensland is now ten times worse than when they were first discovered in 2001. The truth is, numerous ...
Read MoreFor sixteen years, the national committee overseeing the National Fire Ant Eradication Program, utterly failed to ensure that Biosecurity Queensland used $400m of public money to the greatest effect against this terrible pest. Instead, it simply allowed the Queensland government, who puts in only 10% of the money to make 100% of the program’...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland introduced the practice of injecting insecticide into all newly detected fire ant nests; almost from the beginning and against scientific advice. The fire ant infestation is now ten times worse than it was at the beginning as fire ants continue to spread and re-infest treated areas. Therefore, I commissioned an independent l...
Read MoreThe Director-General of the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Beth Woods, told Steve Austin on ABC Brisbane on Friday 1st December that Biosecurity Queensland has NOT been using the $400m of public funding from the Commonwealth and other States for the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program over the past sixteen years ...
Read MoreIn March 2003, I complained to the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) that the Department of Primary Industries’ reports on the fire ant program (DPI, now home to Biosecurity Queensland), prepared for the Commonwealth and other States governments that fund the program, over-state the program’s success and do not report serious pro...
Read MoreFor the first time in 17 years, Biosecurity Queensland is recruiting, or being forced to recruit, properly qualified people to run the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program. Will two new leaders be the new brooms that can save Biosecurity Queensland’s fire ant fiasco? Fire ants are out of control and the infestation is now ten ti...
Read MoreIn March 2017 the Queensland Audit Office found, just as multiple reviews of the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program (fire ant program) have found, Biosecurity Queensland cannot ‘always demonstrate it has successfully achieved the ultimate aims’ of its programs because Biosecurity Queensland does not capture adequate, reliable an...
Read MoreSince 2001, Biosecurity Queensland has been repeatedly told the only way to eradicate fire ants is to totally and repeatedly blanket the entire infestation in low toxic bait: and the cheapest, quickest most effective way is by helicopter. For 17 years, Biosecurity Queensland’s treatment program has been expensive, slow, hit and miss and ineffecti...
Read MoreThe public is doing its bit to fight fire ants: detecting 70% of fire ant nests. But bungling Biosecurity Queensland alienates the public because it takes weeks to inspect suspicious nests and then months treat fire ant nests. Annoyed and alienated residents and businesses think ‘If Biosecurity Queensland is not serious about fire ants, why shoul...
Read MoreHaving wasted $400m of public money on a failed fire ant program that has seen the infestation get ten times worse, Biosecurity Queensland is desperate keep the Commonwealth and other State and Territory governments funding the program. Biosecurity Queensland has promise to double its efforts, which are again, too little too late: likely to waste m...
Read MoreThe fire ant eradication program has been well-funded. The original plan was for five years and to cost $123.4. It has now blown out to a sixteen years and cost $400m: a lot of public money. The fire ant infestation is now ten times worse and Biosecurity Queensland blames a lack of funding. The Biosecurity Capability Review of 2015 and the science ...
Read MoreA vigilant public in south east Queensland is reporting hundreds of fire ant nests and Biosecurity Queensland is taking months to respond. The public is giving up on Biosecurity Queensland and taking matter into their own hands: risking their own safety and likely making the infestation worse. 2nd September 2017
Read MoreFire ants are breaching Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Zone lines at an alarming rate. Fire ants are now in Deagon, Bracken Ridge, Upper Kedron, Camp Mountain, Beerwah and Lowood: all way outside fire ant containment lines because Biosecurity Queensland cannot stop fire ants spreading. 26 August 2017 Update: 28th August 2017 Fire ants fo...
Read MoreAnother new housing estate in south-east Queensland has been found to be infested with fire ants, threatening the safety of residents. Ten fire ant nests were found in a new housing estate in Lowood last week: well into the Somerset Regional Council area and many kilometres from Biosecurity Queensland’s fire ant boundary. Fire ants have also ...
Read MoreThe Australian Agriculture Ministers’ Forum has agreed to extend the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program in south-east Queensland by another ten years at the cost of another $400m: on top of the $400m Biosecurity Queensland has wasted over the past sixteen years with the result the infestation is now ten times worse than when fire ...
Read MoreMultiple independent reviews of the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program have said that Biosecurity Queensland’s fire ant treatment does not work, that fire ants are spreading faster than Biosecurity Queensland can find them and have recommended that Biosecurity Queensland implement an aggressive containment program. They haven’t...
Read MoreIn May, I reported that fire ants were infesting four new housing estates in south-east Queensland: in Upper Kedron, Yarrabilba, Ripley and Pimpama. Since then, fire ants have been found in a new housing estate in Jimboomba in the Logan area, in a new estate in Raceview in the Ipswich area and in a new housing estate in Beerwah; the first to be ...
Read MoreBecause of Biosecurity Queensland’s incompetence, fire ants have now invaded the Moreton Bay Regional Council area north of Brisbane: the third largest local government area in Queensland after Brisbane and the Gold Coast which are already infested with fire ants. Most of south-east Queensland is now infested with fire ants. On 6th June, Biose...
Read MoreFire ants are now infesting parks in the suburb of East Brisbane: putting the safety of young children at risk. Fire ants have been found in heritage listed Mowbray Park, on the bank of the Brisbane River, and in nearby Real Park. Both parks have picnic areas and children’s playgrounds: particularly attractive places for fire ants to nests. ...
Read MoreFire ants are out of control: moving into previously fire ant free suburbs and tightening their grip on suburbs they have already invaded. But Biosecurity Queensland’s fire ant map is nearly a year out of date. Is Biosecurity Queensland trying to cover-up this disaster and its own incompetence? In August 2015, 259 suburbs in the Brisbane, Gold...
Read MoreAs the weather gets cooler, fire ants build mounts above their nests to soak up the warmth of the sun. Fire ant mounds are now popping up in grazing land and along the sides of major roads near the township of Rosewood in south-east Queensland. Rosewood is within the Ipswich City Council local government area, and like most of Ipswich, has been in...
Read MoreThere is an explosion of fire ant nests in new housing estates on the edge of the Fire Ant Biosecurity Zone: threatening the safety and well-being of the residents and poised to spread even further. People carelessly or accidentally moving fire ants in truck-loads of soil, mulch, compost, hay or potted plants is the most common cause of fire ant...
Read MoreFire ants were first detected around Brisbane in 2001 in two locations: one in the north east, centred on the Port of Brisbane: the second and largest spread over suburbs in Brisbane’s south-west. The Port of Brisbane is again infested after a few years of being fire-ant free. Fire ants never left the suburbs in Brisbane’s south-west: inclu...
Read MoreHundreds and hundreds of fire ant nests on the edges of the fire ant infestation that covers more than 400,000ha of south-east Queensland are poised to spread the infestation even further. Fire ants are out of control because Biosecurity Queensland cannot kill them or stop them spreading. In July, the Australian Agriculture Ministers Council wi...
Read MoreQueensland Treasury has given Biosecurity Queensland nearly $1m to make a pitch for another $400m for a new Ten Year Fire Ant Eradication Plan to replace the Failed Fifteen Year Fire Ant Eradication Program. Biosecurity Queensland has spent $400m of public money over the past fifteen years chasing fire ants: with the result that fire ants are no...
Read MoreThe Australian Agriculture Ministers will meet soon to decide the future of the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program. Over fifteen years, Biosecurity Queensland has spent $400m of public money on a failed chase after the last fire ant. Fire ants now infest an area ten times bigger than when they were first detected in south-east Quee...
Read MoreEven with $400m of public money, Biosecurity Queensland has failed to stop the spread of deadly fire ants. But the public is not allowed to know how Biosecurity Queensland spent so much public money for so little public good. Biosecurity Queensland tells the public that its fire ant program is ‘on track’ to eradicate fire ants: that it has ...
Read MoreBiosecurity Queensland, a Queensland government agency, has wasted $400m of public money trying to find and kill fire ants. Fire ant now infest an area over 400,000ha: ten times bigger than it was in 2002. Clearly, Biosecurity Queensland is incapable of managing the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program. The fire ant program is a n...
Read MoreA vigilant Queensland public has found 60%-70% of the fire ants we know about so far. But, to remain vigilant, the public needs to now just where fire ants are, or are likely to be. But Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Restricted Area maps, now covering an area of 410,000ha, ten times more than in the beginning, are more about convincing the...
Read MoreIt’s hard not to believe that they didn’t. Biosecurity Queensland has spent about $400m of public money trying to eradicate a fire ant infestation that is now ten times what it was in 2002. In 2015, the Australian Agricultural Ministers’ Forum commissioned a fifth independent scientific review of the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradic...
Read MoreThe Science Manager of Biosecurity Queensland’s fire ant program warned in October 2016, that Australia could lose the war against the super-pest, red imported fire ants, if the Commonwealth did not give the program more money. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/emr.12238/pdf With his long association with the Queensland fire ant pr...
Read MoreIn January 2016, the Science Manager of Biosecurity Queensland’s Fire Ant Program wrote that the program had eradicated two incursions of the Red Imported Fire Ant. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/emr.12197/full Just six months later, the Port of Brisbane, Queensland’s largest port and the site of one of those incursions, was ...
Read MoreOctober 2016 Fire ants now infest more than 400,000ha of south-east Queensland: an area more than ten times what it was when they were first found around Brisbane in 2001. The Queensland Government has spent $350m of public funds over fourteen years and fire ants are now out of control. Fire ants spread most rapidly when people carelessly or...
Read More‘There have been more fire ant nests found in the last 12 months than in previous years,’ a former fire ant program field assistant has told me. Another former field assistant told me ‘I have observed farms….in the Alberton area …which previously had low infestations, now have fifty plus nests’ and ‘In Purga...one property had fift...
Read MoreBrookfield, a leafy semi-rural suburb in Brisbane’s west, has been off the Fire Ant Restricted Area maps for many years. But it is back on them again now. In September this year owners of a landscape business in Brookfield did the right thing and reported suspicious ants to Biosecurity Queensland. Biosecurity Queensland collected some samples ...
Read MoreLarge fire ant nests have been found in Bracken Ridge, a suburb on Brisbane’s northern edge and more than ten kilometres from the nearest fire ant nests at the Brisbane Airport: more evidence that fire ants are out of control. Fire ant nests get bigger over time. Large nests in Bracken Ridge mean that fire ants have been there, undetected, for...
Read MoreIn August, Biosecurity Queensland sacked a diligent fire ant program field assistant. His sin was to call out program managers’ unfair treatment of workers and their practices of exposing workers to health risks – one time too many. Update: 8th December 2016: Since the whistle-blower was sacked, it looks like the old practices of flagrantly ...
Read MoreOn 19th July 2016, Steve Austin, ABC 612, interviewed Ms Sarah Corcoran, Director of the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program about why the eradication program has been such a failure. The Fire Ant Eradication Program is managed by Biosecurity Queensland which is part of the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. ...
Read MoreThe National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program, run by the Queensland Government with national funding, is a fiasco. The Queensland Government, from both sides of politics, has spent $350m of public money over fifteen years on hundreds of staff and thousands of tonnes of bait. The fire ant infestation is now ten times worse than it was when...
Read MoreThe Queensland Government is claiming it can eradicate fire ants while fire ants are re-infesting ‘fire ant free’ zones. In 2001, there were two separate fire ant infestations around Brisbane: one in some south-western suburbs and another in some north-east suburbs, including the Port of Brisbane and the Brisbane Airport. In 2012, the Queen...
Read MoreHaving failed to stop the spread of fire ants into 280 suburbs covering more than 350,000ha of south-east Queensland, the Queensland government is now dumping the fire ant problem onto the public. On 1 July 2016, the new Biosecurity Act 2014 came into effect. It creates a ‘General Biosecurity Obligation’ which means that people and organisat...
Read MoreIn 2009, with fire ants still marching across south-east Queensland, Professor Roush from the University of Melbourne and his team reviewed the fire ant program. They stated the obvious when they said the Queensland Government was not eradicating fire ants because they couldn’t find them and they needed to do something different. Incredibly, ...
Read MoreHas the Queensland government, of both political persuasions, been creating the conditions for a new industry of private fire ant bio-security consultants: consultants to charge Queensland businesses and residents for services the State government has failed to deliver, with more than $350m of public money, over the past fifteen years?
Read MoreThe Fire Ant Program in SEQ is in Limbo: Eradicate, contain, manage? Who pays? The Commonwealth Agriculture Ministers’ Forum (AGMIN) has yet to make a decision on the future of the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication (RIFA) Program in South East Queensland (the Program), the Queensland Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Leanne Dona...
Read MoreIn September 2015, an independent panel found that Biosecurity Queensland, a division of the Department of Agriculture and Forestry (DAFF), is incapable of protecting Queensland’s economy, environment and way of life from the threats of invasive pests and diseases: both now and in the foreseeable future. Biosecurity Queensland was created in ...
Read MoreFire ants are on the march….
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