Police use force to allow a biosecurity team to enter Trevor Hold’s smallholding. Mr, Hold, whose property does not have fire ants, was later arrested for trying to stop pesticides being used across his land.
A GATTON smallholder who was arrested and charged with two counts of obstructing police after refusing fire ant treatment on his property will front Gatton Magistrates Court this Monday.
Adare commercial farmer Trevor Hold received five stitches in his hand when a farm gate on his property was forced open by police and the National Fire Ant Eradication Program (NFAEP) entered his land to treat it.
He was later arrested while remonstrating with biosecurity workers as they entered his front yard and began distributing pesticides.
The cattle breeder said he was using a reasonable excuse under section 336 of the Biosecurity Act 2014 to protect his fire-ant free land from prophylactic baiting with “unnecessary” pesticides.
“They did not give me time to listen to my reasonable excuse,” he said.
“The biosecurity workers were contravening the restrictions on The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority permit for S-methoprene.”
The Adare man said he had now lodged a complaint with the police officer in charge at Gatton who had referred the events of April 16 to the ethical standard command.
A Crime and Corruption Commission (Queensland) report has been logged regarding an alleged excessive use of force in allowing the fire ant team to ignore a reasonable excuse and distribute toxic chemicals over Mr Hold’s land.
He said another CCC report would be logged against the National Fire Ant Eradication Program (NFAEP) for alleged systematic corruption.
Mr Hold said fire ant eradication was impossible and must be stopped immediately.
“The NFAEP is doing harm,” he said.
“It is not lawful that the police have acted as judge and jury on this matter when a court using judicial processes should have heard the reasons for not having my property treated.
“I do not have fire ants on my property, yet they persist in putting pesticides on my land, in my watercourses and in the forest.
“They say they have to treat adjacent land to fire ants but how far are we judging this distance – 2km, 20km, 200km?”
“My cattle were vulnerable and heavily pregnant when dozens of strangers invaded their normally peaceful paddocks with high vis shirts spraying toxic chemicals on to their feed.
“One cow went into labour and calved on top of the toxic poison distributed because of the increased stress in her environment.
“Another cow stayed in labour, stressed for more than six hours, after the fire ant people left my property.”
Video of the episode showed Mr Hold’s horses bucking wildly and in distress in their paddocks.
“Last year, I had to have two calves euthanised because of toxic liver poisoning,” Mr Hold said.
Fire ant baits such as Pyriproxyfen, S-methoprene, and Fipronil (used in direct nest injection) have been shown in extensive research to pose risks to non-target insects (including pollinators such as bees), and have been linked to birth defects, with some classified as carcinogens that contain PFAS.
Watch the events here: https://shorturl.at/OzCkx
