Australian Advocacy Group

Australian Advocacy Group creates better outcomes, in the managment of fire ants and overall mental health and wellbeing of Queenslanders, by directly treating fire ant nests utilising an Environmental Safe Insect Control System (United States Patent number 10,716,302) and the expertise and know-how of Dr Joshua King and his team at University of Central Florida. This is licenced (UCF reference number 2025-0047) through the Office of Technology Transfer, University of Central Florida.

Alternatives to current chemical offering by the National Fire Ant Eradication Program (NFAEP) create better outcomes for Queenslanders and help manage the fire ant infestation areas. In Dr Joshua Kings open letter he documents concerns with the fire ant eradication programs based on two points:
1) Excessive, potentially ecologically harmful over-application of toxic baits.
2) Lack of alternative management approaches and tools, other than widespread application of (surface) broadcast baits.

In addition to Dr Joshua Kings’ concerns, I have identified two more points:

1) people who choose to live pesticide and chemical free lifestyle are unlikely to report fire ants if no fire ant treatment offerings exist outside of chemical options.

2) The current NFAEP prophylactic approach, treating where no fire ants are evident and often where fire ants are unable to establish successful colonies (fully shaded forestry or bush land areas), using threats of fines, police arrest and intimidation, bullying and coresive strategies to enter private properties, is creating overall health decline and adverse effects in Queensland communities and government trust. The lack of community buy in will ultimately be the failure of the program.

To identify fire ants and discuss these point further I created a few short videos and published on my YouTube channel.

The National Fire Ant Eradication Program accepts it’s brand covers Fire Ant Supression Task Force (FAST) programs and sometimes the difference in the two seperate programs’ becomes blurry.

For Clarity, the Eradication Program is heavily funded by other States and the Federal Government, with Queensland only contributing 10% of the cost. This program manages the prophylactic distribution of toxic chemicals in a nominated eradication zone (10 kilometer wide, 185 kilometer long [minimum] perimeter) and includes managing outlyer, outside the nominated containment area, infestations with a 5 kilometer radius of prophylactic toxic chemical treatment.

The FAST program is poorly funded by the Queensland State Government, with possible top ups from local council rate payers, and managed by local Council Areas to directly treat fire ant nests. This program will not help residents with less than 50 fire ant nests on private property and has waiting times of months for assistance to chemically treat larger infestations.

Australian Advocacy Group is campaigning to get the NFAEP to:

• recognise fire ant eradication is impossible,
• end prophylactic distribution of toxic chemcials by utilising direct nest treatment,
• provide alternatives to chemical treatment for managing fire ants,
• provide subsidies for private property holders to utilise approved alternatives,
• utilise alternatives to chemical treatment to manage fire ants in sensitive ego-systems and public use areas like play grounds and parks,
• respect private property rights and personal individual choice.

Australian Advocacy Group will continue utilising community to initiate policy change to meet these campaign objectives.