Cameron Moore knows what it’s like to live with fire ants but reckons most Australians have no clue what they stand to lose if eradication efforts fail.
The Queenslander has only been stung once but it took two weeks to recover from the welts, pustules and painful, swollen feet.
He hopes it’ll never happen again but isn’t confident because the hyper-aggressive super pest is “everywhere” in his neighbourhood, south of Brisbane.
The slightest brush with a nest – some visible, some not – sees them boil out of the ground to simultaneously sting any threat.
“I’m in a new estate, which can be magnets for fire ants because everyone’s building. They’re bringing in mulches, soil. That tends to be a highway for these ants to move,” Mr Moore told AAP.
On a short stroll around his New Beith property, in the Logan council area, it’s easy to spot 20 to 30 nests without trying.
He knows there are plenty along a fire trail at the back of his place. A fortnight ago he reported fresh finds to the national eradication program.
“But I haven’t heard from them. So I just treated them myself,” Mr Moore said.
The lack of prompt action was unsurprising because it’s happened before. It’s one of the things that dismays him, along with how poorly lifestyle risks have been communicated to the public.
“I don’t think I’ve seen anything suggesting how our way of life could be impacted. If they get out of control like they have in parts of America, playgrounds, green spaces, and football fields will become quite dangerous,” Mr Moore said.
“I just hope, out of this new inquiry, there’s more education. People don’t realise the implications because nobody has told them.”
Last Monday, federal senators flew to Brisbane to begin an inquiry into Australia’s long-running eradication program. They had a common question for every witness: why aren’t they already gone?
Former staffers told them Australia has never been further away from eradication than it is right now – 23 years after the incursion was detected in Brisbane in 2001.
“We’ve spent a billion dollars and we’ve got an infestation which is 20 times worse and out of control,” said Dr Pam Swepson, an original program member and whistleblower who’s minutely followed the response since leaving that role.
She’s convinced eradication is not possible, calls the treatment program a shambles, and says there’s no robust data, or proper surveillance to determine where the ants are.
“We don’t know where the boundary is. We’ve never known,” she said.
“If you can’t find them, you can’t kill them.”
Other witnesses expressed pessimism tinged with hope that eradication remains possible – but they all said it would take a lot more cash and even more political will.
Until recently, fire ants were only known to be in southeast Queensland, where a biosecurity zone has long been in place. But NSW is now on high alert after two significant finds there.
Former Australian Inspector-General of Biosecurity Helen Scott-Orr led a 2021 review of eradication efforts and expressed extreme frustration that her report and its urgent recommendations wasn’t released for two years.
“The whole national program, in my opinion, requires an urgent rethink,” she told senators.
When asked why her report was buried, she replied: “I don’t know. It must be the politics, in terms of getting cost-sharing arranged”.
Federal, state and territory governments have so far committed about $1 billion to the eradication effort.
That includes an extra $600 million promised late last year, after repeated warnings from program leaders that a lack of funds was going to have serious implications for treatment efforts.
Even so, the new injection of cash is far less than what Dr Scott-Orr said was required to contain, suppress, and eradicate the pest by the Olympics in 2032.
“That’s not going to happen,” she said dryly.
Analysts funded by the federal government to model biosecurity risks have said Australia could take a hit of up to $2 billion every year if fire ants get away.
In the US, $US6.7 billion is now spent each and every year managing impacts on agriculture, on electrical infrastructure that ants like to eat, and on keeping sports facilities safe. The list is long.
Australia’s Invasive Species Council says that if Australia wants to avoid that, there must be a short, sharp funding review to look at whether the money that’s on the table is enough for eradication.
Advocacy director Jack Gough is among many who don’t believe it is.
He says taxpayers have had bang for their buck so far, and if Australia had done nothing there would be fire ants across 20 per cent of the country by now.
But he’s worried about a recent strategy shift that’s taken the focus off efforts to suppress fire ants inside the horseshoe-shaped boundary of the infestation, where eradication work is focused.
The suppression zone is home to millions of Queenslanders including Cameron Moore and his family in Logan.
Mr Gough says ant densities are steadily building and only some residents can get access to free baits, despite a shift towards self-treatment.
“They’re just not spending money on suppression and it’s because of penny-pinching,” he told AAP.
“The main way fire ants move large distances is with human activity.
“As density builds, and more people are coming into contact with them, that risk is going to skyrocket.”
The inquiry was also told a type of bait commonly given out was not up to the job because it did not cope with Queensland’s weather.
David Priddy is the CEO of a chemical business that’s developed approved fire ant treatment systems for Australian conditions.
He and others in the professional pest management industry say they’ve been locked out of the eradication response.
He told senators about an industrial site in Brisbane where there were “hundreds if not thousands of the nests” despite the owners being given free bait for years.
Recently, he looked at a portion of the property and found 63 nests across 872sq m.
And he only counted the big ones.
“Baits work if it doesn’t rain, if it’s not hot, if it’s not cold. There are all of these limitations,” Mr Priddy said.
“We believe that not all options have been considered.”
Eradication program executive director Ashley Bacon was the most confident, telling senators eradication was “the only option to maintain the Australian way of life and our livelihoods”.
He said the current strategy was data-driven and involved containment, treatment and surveillance across a vast area of southeast Queensland.
“I believe in eradication being possible because we are implementing the recommendations of the strategic review,” he said.
Senators heard the existing budget, while less than what Dr Scott-Orr suggested, would get the job done thanks to “learnings” after 20 years of battling fire ants, and other efficiency gains.
The inquiry continues.
Source Agencies
