Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, , 9:19:59 to 9:23:44
Senator Roberts questions the governance of the National Fire Ant Eradication Program and the potential impact of its pesticides on native and commercial bee populations.
Topics: Biosecurity, Agricultural productivity
Speakers: Speaker 35, Miss Victoria Anderson, Justine Saunders, Unknown Speaker, Senator Glenn Sterle
delivering on the actual plans that we've agreed as a national level and of course there have been periodic independent reviews also.
>> How do you deal with um group think? How do you deal with uh the fact that some people can be swayed sometimes honestly by the sheer volume of money involved in this and they're benefiting?
>> Well, that's not what we see, Senator. What what I see is how have you looked is committed professionals from around the country all have a common interest in eradicating and all bring quite different views to the table when these discussions occur. So, okay, let's move
on.
>> Very robust approach.
>> Another emerging I would disagree with that. Another emerging issue is the need to protect Australian bees both native and imported. Their importance is is through their value in the pollination process of agriculture and as part of the commercial honey industry. You you'd be aware of that well and truly. What monitoring is being undertaken of the effects of the pesticides used by the fire ant program on bees and other non-target species?
>> I'd have I'd have to take that on notice, senator. I don't know the answer
to How can you say that the program's fine and and the environment is not under threat when you don't even know what's what's going on?
>> Because I'm not running. We're not running the programs into the programs being run by.
>> But you're overseeing it and you're overseeing the the spending of more than a billion dollars of taxpayer money.
That's >> I'm not aware of any risk to the bee industry as a result of the red port program.
>> You're not aware, but will you will you find out? Will you make investigation? That's your duty to do the due diligence. Yeah, >> I've been told of whole hives with thousands of honey bees being totally wiped out by these pesticides because these chemicals are nonspecies specific. Native bees are also vulnerable.
>> So, I think it would be very useful if that information was provided to the program in Queensland. They do receive a lot of correspondence from you. >> Well, well, we we work through them. This is how the national approach works. So, >> don't you oversee them? uh not we we coordinate the national response and we provide money um and uh the the Queensland government has a pretty robust program in place and and we're part of the development of the next plan as well. So Senator I think that information is relevant but I I'm very confident that Queensland is across some of those that some of that feedback. I I visited there recently and they talked to me through some of the the feedback they get. I'm very confident it's robustly dealt with and and the scientists are overseeing this in a way that's um consistent with the scientific literature.
>> They they gave me a wonderful presentation too. Looks really good. Sounds fantastic until you dive into what's happening on the ground. Laws are being broken. Environments are being destroyed.
>> That's I don't think that's I don't think they are the facts.
>> I've seen them with these things. Will these concerning community observations be independently taxpayers money?
>> I I think we've talked about the process for agreeing.
>> Yeah. You've said you won't.
>> No, that's not what we we've said. We've said there's a robust process in terms of considering the next plan and and all of the relevant factors will be
considered. Will investigations into bee deaths include pesticides res residue tests as well as the emerging veroamite concerns. In other words, can you find out what's killing the bees? Not just veroa, but it could be insecticides.
>> We're happy to I'm happy to take on notice, senator, some further information about whetherlanders have have received that feedback about bees.
Will the last question chair will the next funding review include consideration of indirect ecological effects of the program and will the results be published?
>> I'll need to take that on Senator.
>> Now I do believe