QLD Biosecurity entered our property without consent

[Alex Jones]

Hello

My enquiry relates to our property being accessed by a Qld Fire ant team conducting treatments in our area.

Whilst we acknowledge they are authorised to enter for the purpose of treating our property, our concern is they intentionally circumvented our locked gates, triggered our security alarms and set off the security cameras, upset the dogs causing excessive barking and caused us some concern about them being on our property whilst we were not present.

Our biggest complaint is they did all this without our knowledge.

They rang us on Friday to arrange a time to enter and we explained we both work away at different times, and we requested they wait until next week when someone would be available at the house.

We advised we would call them back on Monday to arrange a day and time, but they went ahead and entered our property without our knowledge today, Saturday causing the above problems.

Is there anything we can do in this situation. Obviously I will be writing to them but is there anything I can use in my favour.

Thank you.

 

[Rod]

Unlikely.

From a non-legal viewpoint, biosecurity is more important than one individual's property rights.

Queensland is slowly but seemingly surely losing the battle against the fire ants. The impacted zones are growing each year.

At best they MAY be responsible for damages they cause but dogs barking and triggering of an alarm doesn't normally cause damage.

Let them do their job. It is hard enough without people complaining about their property rights.

While I might initially be peeved if I was in your situation, I'd also sit back and think of the bigger picture. Fire ants are not just dangerous to humans, imagine what can happen to penned in dogs unable to get away from the fire ants!

 

[Alex Jones]

Hi Rod

Thanks for the prompt reply.

We definately have no problem with them doing their job for sure, even though we are not in a fire ant zone they are doing it as a preventative measure.

It was more that they actually pryed open a weakened link in the gate chain to enter. Which to me is only minor damage but not the right thing to do.

We have a terrible history of thefts in the area so hence the locked gates, dogs and cameras.

Our dogs normally roam free so if the dogs had bitten them we would have had a major problem. It was just luck that they had still been locked up for the day as it was early morn.

I appreciate your reply - thanks for taking the time to offer me your thoughts. I will be writing to them regardless so at least they have something on file for their next visit.

Cheers !

 

[Tim W]

They have an express power to enter (and re-enter) land, with or without consent.
(Biosecurity Act 2017 (Qld) section 10(1)(a)).

Put simply, the law is such that they do not require your consent, nor your presence, nor your permission.

 

[Rob Legat - SBPL]

You'll probably also find that they have a schedule to keep to, and if they had to delay to work with everyone's availability they'd never get anything done. So they don't.