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A missed chance to eradicate fire ants could cost Australia $38 billion
By Mike Foley
A premature cut to government funding 20 years ago could end up costing Australia $38 billion, with experts warning a national fire ant outbreak would slug the economy more than the combined earnings of the Tasmanian and Northern Territory economies.
The Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis at University of Melbourne told a Senate inquiry that fresh modelling shows that if the fire ant population spread across the country, it would cost nearly $38 billion over three decades – the equivalent of 2.8 per cent of GDP.
Fire ants could reside in every state and territory of Australia if left unchecked.Credit: iStock
Chief executive Andrew Robinson told the inquiry agriculture, tourism and native animals would suffer the most, but the cost to human health was not included in his analysis.
Fire ant bites typically cause a burning sensation that lasts up to an hour and, in the worst cases, can cause a fatal anaphylactic shock. An incursion was found in south-east Queensland in 2001, prompting ongoing eradication efforts. Outbreaks have been detected in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania in the past year.
Former Queensland chief veterinary officer Ron Glanville told the inquiry last week that funding was “prematurely” cut to the original fire ant eradication program, which was launched in 2001 and backed by both state and federal governments.
He said the eradication program reduced the ant population to a low density by 2003 but a lack of ongoing funding saw the population rebound and eradication programs have been playing catch up since.
“Since then, there has been a succession of increasingly expensive attempts to contain and eradicate the pest over an ever-widening area, but essentially funds have always been inadequate to conduct a comprehensive eradication effort,” Glanville said.
While the $38 billion cost estimate by the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis did not include human health costs, the National Allergy Centre of Excellence, Australia’s peak allergy research body, estimated that a nationwide infestation of fire ants would sting up to 650,000 people a year. That figure includes up to 175,000 people who would suffer allergic reactions such as hives, welts and swelling that in severe cases could be fatal.
The venomous pest, which is native to South America and has colonised the southern United States, has made its way to Australia several times through international shipping and is capable of forming colonies in 99 per cent of mainland Australia and 80 per cent of Tasmania.
Fire ant control is the responsibility of state and federal agriculture ministers. Last year, the ministers topped up funding for the eradication program helmed by Queensland’s Agriculture Department by $600 million over the four years to 2027.
Helen Scott-Orr, a former federal inspector-general of biosecurity who reviewed the national eradication program being led by the Queensland government in 2021, told the senate inquiry earlier this month that nearly double that amount, or up to $300 million a year, was needed.
The Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis submission was prepared for the NSW National Resources Commission. It found the combined damage to agriculture, recreation and tourism would exceed 1.5 per cent of Australia’s gross domestic product and that the silent cost to the environment would be 1.3 per cent of GDP, totalling 2.8 per cent of GDP.
The federal environment department told the inquiry in February that native animals were at risk of being killed by fire ants.
Arboreal animals such as koalas would be stung and killed by ants as they travelled across the ground, the department said.
Defenceless nest-bound hatchlings of native animals such as platypuses and short-beaked echidnas are particularly vulnerable, while turtles and birds that nest low in trees or on the ground were also at risk.
Fire ants tunnel through root systems and damage plants. They also pose a particular threat to horticulture crops.
Livestock productivity would suffer, with fire ant stings posing the greatest threat of mortality to the young of sheep, cattle and poultry of other animals.
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