Federal government must contribute to fire ant fight, Invasive Species Council says

The new plan, announced on Tuesday, focuses on scaling up operations, which it says will strengthen containment and compliance and intensify program-led and community treatment using an outside-in approach.

The new containment area will form a horseshoe around Queensland's infestation, from Moreton Bay in the north, west to the Lockyer Valley, and south to the Tweed Shire.

Targeted treatment areas for 2023-24 will encompass suburbs comprising parts of the City of Gold Coast, Scenic Rim and Southern Downs local government areas.

The national program will continue to prioritise detections found in the targeted areas and outside of the containment boundary, including those recently found on Minjerribah, and in Kleinton and Tallebudgera.

While Queensland Agriculture Minister Mark Furner says a new focus on compliance shows that the National Fire Ant Eradication Program is serious about enforcing the rules that prevent fire ants from spreading, ISC advocacy manager Jack Gough says the government is trying to make the best of a bad situation.

He described it as an under-funded program, saying financial resources were even less than last year's amount.

"In 2021 a government review said $200m to $300m a year was needed to actually eradicate fire ants - that didn't happen," he said.

"At the Agricultural Ministers' meeting in Perth earlier this month, NSW committed to $81m and Queensland to $60m as their share.

"The federal government needs to pick up 50 per cent of the cost but they haven't made that commitment yet.

"We say, the crosshairs are on the federal, Western Australian and Victorian governments now.

"Whether you live in Bendigo or Brisbane, fire ants are coming.

"Once they get in the Murray-Darling system, there will be no stopping them.

"In China they're spreading at a rate of 80 kilometres a year - this is a do or die moment here now."

A review of invasive species action released this month by the Queensland Audit Office found that the risk and cost of invasive species was rising but that the level of response, prioritisation and strategic leadership was inadequate to the task.

Opposition agriculture spokesman Tony Perrett said the state government had been exposed as a national embarrassment for its "incompetent handling" of fire ant eradication programs in the south east of the state.

"Since 2019, three reports have been scathing of the government's lack of progress, mismanagement of programs, funding shortfalls and key performance indicator failures," he said. "The warning signs were there, but Agriculture Minister Mark Furner ignored them all."

His comments come in the wake of news of a fresh outbreak of fire ants 5.5km from the NSW border at a pony club in Tallebudgera,

Saying parks on the Gold Coast have now been fenced off and beaches are under threat, Mr Perrett said Queensland property owners were spending tens of thousands of dollars to try to save their businesses, in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

"We know the annual cost to agriculture will be billions of dollars," he said. "It has only become an issue for the minister with the prospect of Gold Coast beaches being closed and because the fire ants are about to cross the border into NSW."

The ISC said funding shortfalls meant the state government was focusing on urban areas, to the detriment of working on the western fringe of the outbreak.

"Queensland has to take resources away from the westward spread - that's on federal and other governments to help with," Mr Gough said.

All jurisdictions endorsed the new fire ant response plan 2023-27 at the Agricultural Minister's Meeting in Perth earlier this month, saying that "while there was still work to be done to finalise budgets with jurisdictions", the fight against fire ants was already scaling up.

Mr Gough said it wasn't good enough to blame bureaucratic processes, when it was known winter was the best time to contain fire ants.

The National Fire Ant Eradication Program will toughen compliance measures as a new response plan puts preventing human-assisted spread at the heart of the effort to eradicate the invasive South American pest.

Mr Furner said the national program couldn't eradicate fire ants alone.

"We need the community, industry and all levels of government to play an active role in managing fire ants on property they own or manage," he said.

Under the Biosecurity Act there are now penalties of up to $470,000 or three years imprisonment for the most serious aggravated offences.

For businesses or persons who fail to discharge their General Biosecurity Obligation, compliance officers have powers under the Biosecurity Act to shut down worksites until a biosecurity risk is mitigated.

Mr Furner said a compliance team will aim to conduct up to 12,000 audits annually to ensure maximum possible compliance with restrictions on moving materials in earthmoving, quarries, nursuries, civil construction and primary production areas.

Intelligence gathering will assist the compliance team to target the highest risk and most non-compliant industries.

The national program has developed a "fire ant material movement advice tool" to help industry understand and comply with the requirements for moving fire ant carrier.

The program's work will be complemented by a Fire Ant Suppression Taskforce, which has been separately funded with a $37.5 million investment by the state government. This will include community self-treatment projects in Ipswich, Logan and on the Gold Coast.

Mr Furner said no other place in the world had contained fire ants as successfully as this program has.

"Had it not been for the national program, fire ants would now infest approximately 100 million hectares in an arc of country from Bowen in the north, west to Longreach and south to Canberra," he said. "This would impact the economy by an estimated cost of $2 billion per year, forever."