Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, , 9:01:44 to 9:07:27
Discussion regarding the delay in public notification of fire ant detections and the accuracy of modeling used to estimate the risk of spread in New South Wales.
Topics: Biosecurity, Public safety, Integrity
Speakers: Justine Saunders, Senator Ross Cadell, Dr Susie Collins, Unknown Speaker, Miss Victoria Anderson
>> That's correct.
>> You confirmed it on the 25th of September. The genetics that it wasn't from Queensland, it was from overseas was on the 2nd of October. Is that
>> That that would be close, Senator. Second or third.
>> Okay. Why was it not made public until the 13th of October?
>> Um, the decision about public communication was a matter for New South Wales. However, I guess what's important here is one, you need to have make sure that when communicating with the public that we know exactly what we're communicating them, what we're saying, the nature of the risk is, and what we need them to do. until that initial response was underway, we would you run the risk of going out too early and and alarming unnecessarily and or giving in factually incorrect information to the public and not being clear on what we need of them. So there was an appropriate period of time taken to one respond. It wasn't as though agencies just sat and waited for this work to be done. There was a whole range of activities that were undertaken as soon as the threat was risk was identified um including um surveillance. I talked about the tracing of containers, um surveillance, the inclusion of um detector dogs to understand the nature of the risk and of course as you touched on the genetic genetic work that we asked Queensland to do to confirm it source, all of which goes to inform the full extent of the response and how you might engage with the community.
>> You spoke about not going out with incorrect information, yet it seems we did anyway with the 93% for 500 meters.
>> Well, that's a good example, Senator,
cuz the risk is >> but we took the time and we still got it
wrong. No, no, that wasn't a statement.
>> So, let's talk about that. How did the state get it wrong?
>> As I said, it was drawn
>> if they had the I imagine they had the same amount of time as you,
>> Senator. That question's got to be directed at New South Wales, but our understanding was based on rudimentary modeling based on the Queensland experience, which this is nothing like.
>> Does New South Wales I understand New South Wales maintains their modeling is
>> I'm sorry. Can you say
>> New South Wales still maintains that
think there's an agreed position by New South Wales and ourselves that the risk of spread is low.
>> Right. It would be hard now because we don't know. Do you actually know the container the ants came in on fire?
>> No, we don't have that specificity,
>> So, we don't know when we don't know when it came because we don't know the box that it came in.
>> No, that's correct.
we what we have a detection in botney 2014
>> 2016
I'm happy to be wrong here because I'm drawing out 2014 as long as I can to be
corrected. So C I know that there's been a concern about you talked about the the amount of time and when the surveillance has occurred but once again it gets back to the context we talked about integrated approaches pre and postborder activities there's also a bit piece about risk so there's been a real focus on the the ant biology and that's where you talk you've referred to Mr. Jack Goff and his reference to 6 months for example um because because the ant biology would suggest that that's when you could see a spread um and of course we haven't seen that in this instance so you could hypothesize and say 6 months or less but we are facts and we don't we don't have those facts so we're relying on what we do know and what we do know is that based on surveillance there is no immediate risk that we've been able to identify there has been no movement of ants within that area we have not identified any in that time Um, also want to point out though that when we consider risk and we consider the nature of the response and how much surveillance we do, we consider a number of factors. So we're informed by the assessment of the goods arriving um combined with the volume of goods, relevant intelligence such as the country of origin and compliance history. So there's a range of factors we consider um and noting that we're also managing hundreds of biocurity risks. Red and fire ants is we know it's a significant risk. you see the investment we're making in Southeast Queensland, um, which we're absolutely committed to eradicating. We know this is an important risk, but it's one of many that we're managing. So, we have a layered response considering a range of factors in our in our activities. And you touch on the when was the last incursion in Botney.
>> Yeah, poor botney is um 2014 to 2016.
>> No. And that's and that [laughter] raises a really good point too because out in where we've where we've detected ant incursions and nets um >> where that's occurred outside of southeast Queensland we have effectively eradicated every one of them.
>> Yeah. But going back my concern on this one it's found and you talk about what we know. We know that overnight ants don't dig a colony a meter under a concrete pad under a container. that that had takes some time to get that size of colony and that sort of organization. So I guess my concern going forward is and I'm not looking at detection. Let's let's say we've done it well done. You know that's all good. There was a period of 3 years at a medium risk facility where we didn't law where we didn't >> on that
>> but we but we actually did have surveillance activity within the vicinity. So if we were to see a spread because I said we there's a number of there's three other facilities in the premises they also had surveillance in that time. So if you look at the period of time there was routine surveillance within the area.
>> I say we didn't see a spread but we still would have could have an incursion. We still could have them there and they could skip if if I know you're saying they're fumigated. I 100% get that. My concern is 3 years is a long time and the timing it could have been 2 months before it could have been 3 months before could have been nine months before. If it's 35 months, you know, or just under three years, the risks of ants being there longer escalate the longer they're there and the risk of of do we have the funding to step up?