The discovery of an immature fire ants nest in Tweed Heads is not surprising and should be a wake up call for governments about the ongoing gaps in the national eradication program, according to the Invasive Species Council.
‘We have been warning governments for 18 months that, without urgent action to ramp up funding for suppression and community outreach in Queensland, it is only a matter of time before fire ants are discovered in Tweed Heads,’ Invasive Species Council Advocacy Manager Reece Pianta said.
‘Unsurprisingly, these fears have become a reality this week, with a community member finding a fire ant nest south of the border.
‘While the eradication and biosecurity response elements of the national program are working really well and we have full confidence in the NSW government’s response to this new detection, once again we have an instance of fire ants probably being moved in carrier materials.
‘The problem is there are extremely high densities of fire ants south-west of Brisbane around Logan, Scenic Rim and the northern Gold Coast. This means that, even with ramped-up enforcement of movement controls, it is inevitable that nests will slip through the border on carrier material like soil and mulch.
‘The Queensland government’s recent $24 million investment in scaled-up suppression efforts are starting to come online but there needs to be a matching federal investment to support the containment and control work before this gets out of hand.
‘We should start to see the benefits from the Crissafulli Government’s recent investment over the next 6 months, but there’s still a huge gap in supporting councils managing fire ants in public spaces and residents dealing with fire ants in their backyards. This is where the Albanese Government needs to step up and step in with matched additional funding.
‘The whole national program is being put at risk because of an underinvestment in suppression, education and community mobilisation in areas inside the biosecurity zone.
‘This is a national biosecurity emergency unfolding right in front of us. We urgently need the Albanese Government to step up, match Queensland’s $24 million suppression funding boost and commit to the full ongoing eradication program.
‘This is not just a Queensland issue. If fire ants escape the current containment zone, they will spread across the country, devastating agriculture, threatening public health, and damaging our wildlife and way of life.
‘Fire ants are among the world’s worst invasive pests. Their aggressive stings can trigger severe allergic reactions in humans, and they pose a serious threat to pets, livestock, native animals and infrastructure.’
‘We are also concerned that both the Queensland and NSW governments have been too slow to implement movement controls in the Tweed because of the difficulty of managing cross-border complexities.
‘After the recent Currumbin outbreak, near Collonagatta airport, we clearly warned that the cross border arrangements for Tweed had to be sorted quickly because the artificial state border line was no longer an appropriate place for movement restrictions to end.
‘It is disappointing that they did not act then and we hope this will be a lesson to both governments that hope cannot be a strategy when it comes to this aggressive invader.’
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Images, maps and other fire ant multimedia to accompany this story are available here.
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