Government-commissioned economic analysis suggests the economic case for red imported fire ant eradication is marginal. The main flaw in this modelling is that it only covers a 15-year time period. By simply extending the analysis of the latest government-commissioned modelling, the economic case for RIFA eradication goes from marginal to compelling. For every dollar spent eradicating the ants, the public benefit is between $3 and $9.

This analysis shows that RIFA will cost Australia more than $22 billion by the 2040s. This means that it is less costly to spend $200 million or even $300 million per year every year for the next ten years (which would be a total of between $2 billion and $3 billion) to eradicate RIFA now.

We suggest that one of the reasons that the eradication plan has gone underfunded is that the latest cost-benefit analysis – commissioned by Biosecurity Queensland of Department of
Agriculture and Fisheries, titled Assessing the Impacts of the Red Imported Fire Ant and published in 2021 – downplays the economic case for urgent action.