THE permits for pesticides pyriproxyfen (PER87728) and for S-methoprene (PER90213) being used in the National Fire Ant Eradication Program are both minor use authorisations.
A minor use regarding major crop, animal or non-crop situations is supposed to be limited.
According to their definition, “limited use” means the use does not occur across the whole industry but is only confined to limited segments or used infrequently or sporadically.
Limited use is defined as use that must not exceed: 10 percent of the total area of crop, number of animals, or area of situation, or 10,000 hectares (Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (AVPMA) guidelines for determining minor use –https://shorturl.at/Gkjek.)
Using something over 830,000ha is certainly not minor use.
In 2022, complaints of breach of the permit were sent to the APVMA.
The permit for S-methoprene used to say: “Do not apply if fire ant populations are not evident or no longer evident.”
There were complaints to the APVMA in 2022 that the NFAEP breached their permit as they would spray regardless of whether fire ants were present.
In 2024, the APVMA took this wording out of the permit.
It now says: “Do not apply where threatened invertebrate species and/or threatened ecological communities are present, except in the fire ant eradication zone.”
That is the area of 830,000ha between Caboolture in the north to Tweed Heads in the south and stretches west to Gatton.
This land consists of national forests home to threatened vertebrates and endangered ecological habitats.
The permit for pyriproxyfen was changed to: “Do not apply as a preventative measure for Red Imported Fire Ant Control.”
The NFAEP has admitted that there are no fire ants in Samford, but they are spraying with pyriproxyfen.
That means they are again breaching their permit.
APVMA has the power to investigate and also to bring people responsible for the breach to court.
They breached the permit of S-methoprene in 2022, and after two years of telling me how seriously they took this complaint, the APVMA sent the complaint to the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries to investigate (they investigated themselves).
Needless to say, they found that they had not breached the permit.
The Biosecurity Act 2014 states under section 336 that a person must not obstruct a designated officer, another person, or a detection animal helping a designated officer, exercising a power under this Act unless the person has a reasonable excuse.
This act does not define a reasonable excuse, which means that only a court has the power to define a reasonable excuse (a lawyer told me this).
Yet NFAEP officers claim they have the power to determine this.
By spraying into areas where there are no fire ants, they make these areas more suitable for fire ants as other ant species competing with them or even prey on them have been killed.
Conny Turni, Somerset
