Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House the growing concern around the management of the Fire Ant Eradication Program run by the state government. We are seeing more and more reports on the northern regions of the Gold Coast of fire ants. With the amount of young kids in the area this is of great concern to parents as unlike many other ants, which bite and then spray formic acid on the wound, Fire ants only bite to get a grip and then sting (from the abdomen) and inject a toxic alkaloid venom. For humans, this is a painful sting — and the after effects of the sting can be deadly to sensitive individuals. We are also concerned of the environmental impact as fire ants are aggressive and voracious feeders on small ground fauna, including insects, spiders, lizards, frogs, birds and mammals. Fire ants could seriously affect the vegetation communities in natural areas.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to do everything in its power to ensure that the clear and present danger of fire ants on our coastal plains that are marching south, is dealt with by a campaign working from the south and moving north, in other words using a similar strategy to that being rolled out in the west, moving east.