‘Likely to be severe’: Report’s grim warning for Gold Coast
A long-hidden report has blown wide open the scale of the damage that will be done to tourism if fire ants are allowed to take hold. Find out the grim prediction.
Gold Coast
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Scared of snakes? Of spiders? Of great white sharks?
You wouldn’t be alone. Hollywood blockbusters have been made based on the deep-seated fears many people have about the above creatures.
But the critters that should really keep us up at night are far smaller, and more dangerous still.
Your correspondent has spent some hours reading through the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program Strategic Review.
Despite the less than catchy title, and very unusually for a government-commissioned report, it’s a real page-turner.
A horror story, in fact. Which may explain why, despite being submitted in August 2021, it was only released to the public three weeks ago.
For the Gold Coast – where the dreaded ants have recently been discovered at The Spit, the Broadwater Parklands and on the grounds of Miami State Primary School – the reading is grim. Especially in the section dealing with tourism.
“In the United States, three out of ten tourists in RIFA (Red Imported Fire Ants)-infested areas were estimated to avoid outdoor activities because of the ants – often called ‘barbecue-stoppers’,” the report states.
“Beaches are important drivers of tourism in Australia, and RIFA can establish nests along foreshores and sandy dunes and forage into the intertidal zone.
“Impacts in places like the Gold and Sunshine Coasts are likely to be severe.”
City leaders are especially concerned about the ants infesting beaches. If that were to happen, forcing closures, or worse, allowing the impression to spread nationally that visits to our coastline would come with the risk of the nasty after-effects of bites, the damage to tourism could be devastating.
Councillor Brooke Patterson has been very vocal on the issue, as has councillor Hermann Vorster, who noted recently: “Fire ants can make beaches unusable. Let that sink in.”
Some businesses on the Gold Coast are already paying a price.
Spectrum Plants is a longstanding and popular nursery in Wongawallan, which provides employment for 25 people.
It is one of a large number of such businesses in hinterland areas.
Owner Wesley Trevor said there was “almost a state of panic” in the industry about the threat posed by the tiny pests, and already, he was spending $30,000 a year to protect his business by root drenching plants every 28 days in fire ant pesticide.
“Probably the most stressful thing that’s happened the last 12 months was having to go through the whole rigmarole because fire ants were shipped a couple of places they shouldn’t have been accidentally,” Mr Wesley said.
“It wasn’t our fault but being part of the industry you bear the consequence of it.
“ … It’s a major issue. The whole industry is concerned. When nurserymen get together that’s all we talk about.”
Costs are also being borne by local sports teams, with council having been forced to shut ten parks in the northern Gold Coast in the past two months, each for a week at a time.
“It’s all over the northern Gold Coast,” Theodore MP Mark Boothman said. “We’ve had parks in Ormeau, parks in Oxenford closed because of fire ant infestations.
“That means sporting games can’t go ahead.
“ … The Gold Coast is built on tourism. If we get those fire ants on our beaches, there goes our tourism. It’s going to destroy the Gold Coast’s iconic beaches, because tourists will stay away.
“We need action on a plan to deal with this problem. We need to draw a line in the soil right now.”
Happily such an action plan already exists. It’s in the strategic review your columnist has been studying.
The review put forward three options for dealing with the growing infestation:
* Option A: Elimination of fire ants by the time of the 2032 Olympics, at an estimated annual cost of $200m-$300m.
* Option B: Containment of the ants to South East Queensland, at an estimated annual cost of $150m-$250m.
* Option C: Uncontrolled spread of fire ants nationwide, with an estimated cost of up to $2 billion.
The report criticised an existing 10-year plan, running from 2017, as being constrained by a fixed annual budget, saying eradication program bosses had been “continually forced to make budget-driven decisions, which have prioritised efficiency over effectiveness”.
The report strongly recommended Option A was accepted, saying scaling up a suppression program across SEQ was “achievable” and should be “started immediately”.
That was in August 2021. Instead the report has only now been released, and far from the urgent implementation of its recommendations, it appears to have been gathering dust since.
Agriculture Minister Mark Furner has responded robustly to criticism, hailing the National Fire Ant Eradication Program as “the best in the world”.
“No other place in the world has contained fire ants as successfully as this program has done it here. It is a world leader,” Mr Furner said.
Be that as it may, it has clearly failed to halt the rapid spread of fire ants throughout the Gold Coast.
That’s already costing some good local businesses hard-earned dollars – and it threatens to cost many, many more.
And that’s before we even think about the horrors some residents would inevitably go through if bitten, with the report noting that “estimates of people in infested areas that are stung each year range from 30-89 per cent”.
Of those, a small number die.
As Cr Vorster might say, let that one sink in for a minute.
For the Gold Coast, it’s a nightmare scenario to rival any that may be thrown up by thrillers involving snakes, spiders or great white sharks.
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