A senate committee has recommended the increased use of academic and private sector expertise to help with the eradication of the red imported fire ant (RIFA) that continues to threaten the agriculture sector in southeast Queensland.
The rural and regional affairs and transport references committee has found that the development of solutions to the RIFA problem has been stunted by insufficient involvement of people such as farmers, who understand the problems the biosecurity pest poses.
References committee chair Matt Canavan said that the RIFA, which is native to South America, has been contained to the lower part of Queensland but greater efforts were needed to eradicate the pest.
“The Australian government has spent $690 million to contain and eradicate red imported fire ants from southeast Queensland since they were first observed in 2001,” Canavan’s introduction to the report says.
“While these efforts have largely contained the ants to southeast Queensland, we have not been close to eradicating them from this area.”
The committee heard evidence that the fire ants could cost the economy $2 billion a year and reduce agricultural output by up to 40% if not kept under control.
Canavan said that there are multiple reasons why the process of RIFA eradication has been less than optimal.
“Australia’s red imported fire ant response has been hampered by shortfalls in funding, excessive bureaucracy, insufficient coordination between different levels of government, a lack of transparency and a reluctance to involve industry and the private sector in solutions,” he said.
“A major review (the Scott-Orr review) in 2021 concluded that an extra $200 million-$300 million of funding a year for 10 years was needed, and recommended changes to the governance of the red imported fire ant response.”
Canavan said the response to eradication has been too tightly held within government departments and the committee believed that the use of academic and private sector expertise in the eradication efforts was necessary.
“To highlight just one example, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has been provided just $100,000 per year across 10 years to conduct research on red imported fire ants,” Canavan said.
“Our committee recommends the establishment of Red Fire Ants Cooperative Research Centre that could provide public funding, and attract private resources, to improve our methods of eradicating red imported fire ants.”
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