Our compliance and enforcement activities aim to minimise the risk of human-assisted movement of fire ants.
Our work
Our compliance and enforcement activities aim to minimise the risk of human-assisted movement of fire ants. Doing this will maximise our chances of reducing the risk of fire ants in our community.
While everyone has a responsibility to prevent the spread of fire ants, we concentrate on people and businesses who work with materials that could potentially carry fire ants (fire ant carriers).
Our powers help us to:
- prevent the spread of fire ants within, between and beyond the fire ant biosecurity zones caused by human-assisted movement
- promote and enforce compliance with the general biosecurity obligation (GBO)
- make sure everyone reports fire ants within 24 hours
- make sure we have access to properties to do our work.
We know that most people want to comply with their obligations, so we prioritise working with people to help them achieve voluntary compliance. We do this through education and developing targeted communication and engagement initiatives, including guidance tools and resources.
Compliance and Enforcement Strategy 2023–27
Our compliance and enforcement strategy discusses:
- the legislative and regulatory framework for fire ant compliance
- our approach, principles and objectives that will guide our interventions
- processes available to promote compliance and identify, assess and address non-compliance
- tools we will use to respond to non-compliance, such as advisory notices, biosecurity orders, directions, penalty infringement notices and prosecutions.
Read the full strategy (PDF, 686KB)
Activities
Time | Number of of audits | % non-compliant | Enforcement outcomes | Most common offences |
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Q4 2023–24 | 387 | 23 |
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Q3 2023–24 | 393 | 24 |
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Q2 2023–24 | 241 | 23 |
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Q1 2023–24 | 277 | 23 |
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