A 10-year program to stamp out fire ants from Australian shores should have greater independence from governments to ensure it succeeds, a key environmental policy group says.
The national fire ant program began in 2017 with a $411 million budget from the Commonwealth, states and territories, but recently admitted it needs more money and time to eradicate the ants.
Chief executive of the Invasive Species Council, Andrew Cox, told ABC Radio Brisbane he had visited southern US states infested with fire ants, and seen first-hand what Australia could look like if the ants are allowed to take hold here.
He said American families could no longer allow children to play in their backyards without baiting the ants regularly, farms could not treat infested paddocks due to the costs, the ants damaged major infrastructure such as dams, and native species were destroyed by the vicious pest.
One US fire ant expert told Mr Cox that if the ants became established in Australia, "there's not an area of your life that will be untouched".
Fire ant spread
Ants have spread slowly through south-east Queensland, from Brisbane to the Lockyer Valley, with the national fire ant program working to push them back from west to east.
This year, the federal government brought forward $18 million from the program's existing budget, on request from its steering committee.
The committee has asked for additional funding, outside its original $411 million budget, to meet its goals.
Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud last week said he is deeply concerned the program is close to failing.
Mr Littleproud said he was particularly concerned the fire ant was creeping west toward the Toowoomba Range and could, from there, enter the Murray Darling and sweep south into NSW and Victoria.
Queensland manages the 10-year program; last week the state's agriculture minister, Mark Furner, said it was on track and continuing its "critical work".
An independent review of the program was recently completed by former Inspector-General of Biosecurity, Helen Scott-Orr.
Eradication still 'a chance'
National fire ant program chair Wendy Craik told ABC Radio Brisbane she didn't believe the program was "on track to fail", but there wasn't enough money to achieve eradication by 2027.
"We still believe there is a chance we can eradicate it, but we believe it will take further resources," Dr Craik said on Tuesday.
The program first indicated in its 2018-19 reports that the $411 million funding could be too little.
She said delays in securing next-generation remote surveillance equipment from the US meant the program had only resumed aerial surveillance in 2021.
Previously, the program had relied on public reporting and monitoring of sentinel sites to keep track of the ants, she said.
More independence needed
But Mr Cox said on Wednesday he was worried politics and bureaucracy could interfere with the "difficult, complex" eradication program.
Mr Cox said the Invasive Species Council believed the program should be moved outside of state or federal government control to give it greater independence and ability to respond quickly.
"They can't be dynamic and quick with, particularly, the media and public dissemination. It's all bound by public rules, which is not good for a program like this," he said.
"It almost needs to be more like a major disaster or emergency response, where you just get the job done, people have a lot of power and autonomy at the leader level, and there's very few rules to get in the way."
He said the program is heavily reliant on the goodwill of landowners and the general public and needed all Australians to understand fire ants are "everyone's problem, not south-east Queensland's problem".
Dr Craik said if the program had not been in place, fire ants could cost Australia $2 billion annually and would have spread from Bowen and Canberra.
