Speaking on ABC News breakfast last week, Jack Gough, CEO of the Invasive Species Council, outlined three alarming discoveries of fire ants in new locations in just eight days. The new discoveries are at a central Queensland coal mine, in a shipping container in Perth in Western Australia and across the New South Wales border at Tweed.
Jack said this is not bad luck, but a spectacular failure because of known gaps in funding, enforcement and surveillance.
“I have no doubt that these latest outbreaks will be able to be contained and eradicated, but clearly the system is breaking down,” he said. “The Invasive Species Council has warned governments for two years that there is a major gap in funding for suppression, with nest densities off the charts between Jimboomba and Logan, south of Brisbane.
“In that area fire ant treatment is just being left up to residents, councils and businesses with limited support – this might seem good in theory but it is risking the success of the entire national eradication program.
“Queensland Ag Minister Tony Perrett MP has stepped up with $24 million in new funding this year, but this is not just a Queensland problem and as NSW Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty says: ‘This is an Australia problem. More needs to be done – particularly at a national level.’
“I know that it is difficult to get things through the bureaucracy of treasuries and the complexity of national cost sharing processes but if Australia’s governments do not immediately step in with extra suppression funding, then they are condemning huge parts of Australia to a permanent fire ant future.”
Hear the full interview HERE
