Fire ants could cost households more than $180 million if allowed to spread across Queensland, that’s according to the invasive species council.
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00:00Certainly quite alarming figures that have come out today and what the research has shown
00:06is that not only could it cost Queensland households up to $188 million in vet and medical
00:13bills each and every year, but that we could see more than 115,000 people being sent to
00:18hospital for those fire ant stings, as well as up to six people being killed annually
00:22if that spread does continue at the rate that it's already going.
00:26Now the Australian Institute conducted this research.
00:29They have been modelling it largely off their research from the United States and what they
00:34looked at this time was what the cost would be for each individual household if that was
00:38void of any additional government spending or further agriculture sector funding.
00:43So what that data showed was they analysed the spread of financial and medical strain
00:48in each electorate across the state.
00:50It found that homes, so not apartments but houses in particular from Brisbane all the
00:54way through to the Gold Coast would be the most impacted.
00:58It also found that pesticide expenditure could exceed more than $121 million annually.
01:04So it is certainly quite a concern and the Invasive Species Council has already identified
01:08that South East Queensland is really the epicentre of fire ant spread in Australia, having first
01:13been identified back in 2001 in Brisbane.
01:16So areas like Coomera on the Northern Gold Coast, Ipswich and Logan are already severely
01:22impacted by fire ant populations and certainly the research also assumes that more than 30%
01:28of the population will be stung and that's largely based off the behaviour of the invasive
01:32species in the United States.
01:34So that's caused major concern for researchers who are calling for urgent action.
01:38They've asked for state and federal governments to jointly fund efforts to eradicate the species
01:43sooner rather than later they say as the problem could become an even bigger issue than it
01:47already is.