On a stormy Friday night in Samford, in Brisbane’s north-west, more than 200 people attended a meeting keen to learn how they could stop the government from eradicating a dangerous pest.
A two-sided sheet of paper placed on each seat advised residents how to legally obstruct a biosecurity officer from the National Fire Ant Eradication Program.
The organisers of the late March meeting suggested that landowners join a Facebook message group so that when biosecurity officers arrived, they would face not one property owner but dozens of protesters. They oppose any violence.
A number of groups, including the Australian Advocacy Group and the Facebook-based “Stop the toxic fire ant program”, want to give up on wiping out the invasive pest, claiming the chemicals used are unsafe.
“We, as a community, have to learn how to live with fire ants,” Libertarian Senate candidate and former biosecurity officer Jim Willmott said at a second community event the Guardian attended in Fernvale in early April.
Willmott has also been part of a separate and unrelated campaign working to build distrust against the renewable energy rollout.
But opposition to the eradication program could undermine efforts to rid Australia of the highly invasive ants, which could cost the economy billions of dollars a year, experts say.
Two rightwing senators spoke at the Samford Community Centre. Gerard Rennick, who quit the LNP in August, had not prepared a speech but was there as a concerned neighbour whose property could be treated.
Rennick left the LNP last year after losing a winnable spot on the Queensland Senate ticket. He had faced a challenge from the party’s more moderate wing, which had grown uncomfortable with his statements on vaccines, climate change and Ukraine.
Malcolm Roberts, from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, endorsed the Samford event organisers. “These people have done their research,” he said.
Roberts said fire ant eradication was about a much larger issue: “Control, property rights and wealth transfer, transfer from you to the people pushing this treatment.”
“The number one problem for governments in our country is that politicians refuse to use data when making decisions, policies and laws ... heard of climate change, climate fraud, Covid mismanagement, Covid deceit?” he said.
Event organiser Trevor Hold told the Samford meeting: “We’ve seen in the Covid Senate inquiry that not enough weight was put on human rights. I feel that’s happening now as well because they haven’t learnt their lesson.”
A costly fight
The red imported fire ant probably arrived in Australia from South America in the 1990s, well before it was discovered at the Port of Brisbane in February 2001.
Ever since, authorities have been attempting to wipe them out, an effort that has cost $1.2bn. If allowed to spread, the ant could make the vast majority of Australia its home, with substantial impacts on people’s health and the environment.
Since 2015, the eradication effort has been funded by state, territory and federal governments. It is carried out on foot and by helicopter, drones and fixed-wing aircraft using baits like s-methoprene and pyriproxyfen or more traditional insecticides such as fipronil. The plan is to gradually shrink the 830,000-hectare area in which the pest is currently contained, mostly in and around Brisbane.
But while activist groups like those at the Samford meeting oppose violent obstruction, workers from the national eradication program have reported being threatened with dogs and guns. Police now routinely escort biosecurity officers.
Speaking with Guardian Australia on the condition of anonymity, two of the program’s field officer supervisors said they had encountered the sentiment in pockets across the entire eradication band, which extends in a loop from the Gold Coast to west of Grafton and the Sunshine Coast.
Maddie* claims she has been verbally abused “countless times” and photographed and stalked while working in the eradication zone.
“I’ve had people right up in my face yelling at me while videoing me at the same time, refusing any degree of treatment,” she says.
“They’re calling us names, telling us that we’re killing their dogs. Telling us: ‘My child got reactions because of you. My chickens have died because of you.’
“We’ve had threats of ‘If you come on my property, I’ll shoot you’. ‘If you try and come on my property, I’ll set my dog on you.’
“I’ve even had one staff member who was actually physically abused on the job, they managed to grab the lanyard around her neck. She was scared for her life, in absolute tears.”
Karen* claims a property owner “hunted down the team and actually threatened them and also threatened to use a gun on them”.
The supervisors say most owners are supportive of the program but claim a small minority had left staff fearful and seeking police escorts. Program data showed 1% of properties could not be treated and that 99% had been treated.
Marni Manning, the general manager of strategy and delivery at the eradication program, says research it conducted found objectors primarily did not recognise government authority and questioned the government’s right to manage private land – a sentiment that had increased significantly since the Covid pandemic.
Other reasons given by landowners who objected to treatment included a lack of confidence in the safety of treatment products and the belief that treatment was unnecessary because owners had not seen fire ants on their land.
Karen says staff sought approval from property owners before treatment, but under biosecurity legislation, program officers – who work in groups of two to 14 – could enter and treat a property without consent.
The program has contacted police after some field officers were allegedly doxxed, and when field officers were barred from accessing a property.
In cases when people were “incredibly hostile”, program staff would “proactively engage with the police to escort us and to keep the peace and to keep everyone safe in that environment, because we need to complete the treatment”, Maddie says.
Manning cites one instance where property owners were alleged to have threatened to “shoot down” the program’s helicopters, which spray granular baits containing a fire ant-targeted nerve agent. Manning says the local council notified the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Casa) and the alleged threats related to mosquito control flights that had been mistaken for fire ant operations.
A Casa spokesperson said it had “been notified of a threat to operators of the program made via a social media post, as has Queensland police. Police are investigating and Casa will assist if requested.”
Manning says New South Wales police contacted the program after identifying a different potential threat related to its operations in the NSW northern rivers after the detection of infestations in the region.
Concerns about the safety of treatments
The Invasive Species Council’s Reece Pianta says there have been misunderstandings regarding the science and processes used in the fire ant eradication effort.
He says the treatment used is highly targeted to fire ants and is “the safest and most efficient” way to tackle the pest.
Some people have raised concerns about fipronil, which is banned for use on crops in the EU, China, Vietnam and California because of its effect on pollinators.
But Jack Gough of the Invasive Species Council said in early 2024 that concerns over the health and environmental impacts of the insecticide did not reflect the highly targeted and low levels at which it’s used by the ant eradication program.
“This is being done in a targeted fashion at very low doses in ways that aren’t comparable to the broad-scale use of fipronil on crops. They are just such wildly different scales of use,” he said.
“There’s absolutely no way the way it is being used [on fire ants] is going to have an impact on native animals, other than some highly localised impacts on native ant species that will quickly recolonise once fire ants have been removed from the area.”
Many opponents are concerned that the chemicals used are unsafe, particularly when used repeatedly on the same property. They claim that if there are no known ants in the area, the poisons are being deployed improperly as a preventative, or “prophylactic”, treatment.
A spokesperson for the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority said s-methoprene and pyriproxyfen were “of low toxicity to mammals” and “do not pose a significant risk to humans, the environment, or domestic pets” when used as directed.
“The use of these products within the … treatment or surveillance areas is not considered prophylactic or preventative since fire ants are likely to be present.”
Field officer supervisors Maddie and Karen now give staff the tools they need to deal with hostility.
“It’s just unfortunate [that] things like situational awareness and reading hostile body language are now starting to become part of that training,” Maddie says.
The eradication program could not confirm how many incidents had been referred to the police but says some matters are before the courts.
The fight against the eradication of fire ants is increasingly online, a program spokesperson says.
“Misinformation and baseless claims about our program, treatment products and the safety of eradication treatment for pets, livestock and the environment continue to circulate online and in mainstream media.
“Spreading misinformation disrupts eradication efforts and puts communities at risk by downplaying the serious impacts fire ants can have.”
Pianta said the disinformation was similar to climate change denialism or anti-vaccination movements.
“These conspiracy theories are dangerous because they undermine the effectiveness of national eradication efforts and put Australians at risk,” he says.
“The tiny minority who are refusing treatments on their properties are undermining the national program, which needs to conduct eradication activities on 100% of the targeted area.”
‘We’ve got a bit too much government’
Willmott drew the biggest cheer of the night at the Samford event when he called for a more local approach based on community “syndicates”, individual choice of treatment type – including non-chemical approaches – and a switch from eradication to suppression.
“I think we’ve got a bit too much government,” the Libertarian Senate candidate said. “People in Australia are just sick of the top-down authority and they want to have more control of what’s going on in their lives every day.”
One audience member claimed he broke out in a rash and boils after spraying from a helicopter and had been to the emergency department three times. Others said pets had been harmed.
Event organiser Hold, billing himself as an “ultrapreneur”, showed off his alternative treatment technology based on pouring very hot water on ants.
Hold advised “everyone who gets a notice should object” because doing so could “delay them for months”. He said he had been “coerced by government officials to do what I don’t want to do – get treatment”.
An exemption in the Biosecurity Act allows a person to obstruct an officer if they have a “reasonable excuse”.
Hold told Guardian Australia it was inevitable that some program officers were abused because the program was so invasive. He insists: “I do not endorse violence.”
“I’m sure they have [been abused]. Every single time they go to someone’s place that doesn’t want [treatment] they threaten $16,000 fines and police arrest,” Hold says.
“These arguments are based on threats after threats after threats. Violating people’s human rights, property rights and individual choice is going to create anger and, of course, people are going to start lashing out.”
Willmott told Guardian Australia that when fire ants were discovered in 2001 it was possibly already too late to stop their spread. He argues the eradication program is just creating a backlash.
He stresses opponents should never resort to violence: “No way. That’s not the way to do it. Advocacy and people power is the way to do it.”
Rennick says: “I’m of the view the aim should be to eradicate. By trying to eradicate you at least get suppression. If there’s a located fire ant nest down at Samford, by all means, spray the nest. I just don’t know why they’re spraying where there’s no identified nests.”
Roberts told Guardian Australia: “While One Nation supports a stronger overall effort to contain and eradicate red imported fire ants, we believe these efforts would be more effective if authorities worked more closely with landholders rather than just imposing blanket restrictions and rules for everyone.”
Samford resident Sarah McGuire says there have always been small groups of people opposed to the eradication program, but opponents became more organised when the program hit Samford Valley – a tight-knit community living on relatively large blocks.
McGuire founded the Facebook group Fire Ant Treatment Alternatives last year after her property was treated.
“A lot of people who live here are into an organic lifestyle and living,” she says. “They’ve got small acreage. They grow a lot of their own fruit and veg. There’s a lot of very environmentally conscious people here.”
McGuire, like Hold, believes the ants will inevitably win. “You could nuke this whole state and the ants are still going to be here. They’re invincible.”
*Names have been changed
