Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This weekend in Victoria, I very much look forward to going back into the beautiful Dandenong Ranges. I know, Mr Speaker, that you will too. It will be a great time to have barbecues, kick the football and enjoy time up in the Dandenong Ranges. But the problem we had last year in February and March is that the Dandenong Ranges, like so many places across Victoria, were swarmed by European wasps. They are attracted to barbecue meats and sweets. They are the perfect barbecue stopper—they literally stop a barbecue.

When you have children, the danger is that the European wasps are attracted to sugar. They go in the can and the young child can actually drink one. Obviously, the child would need hospital attention. The European wasps are right across Australia, including in South Australia and Victoria, and they have hit very hard in Tasmania, New South Wales and ACT. Western Australia did have some problems, but they are very keen to make sure they are definitely not established there permanently.

It is the responsibility of the states at this stage to eradicate European wasp nests on public land. It varies from state to state. The ACT has a very good program. It has a hotline where people ring up and report a nest. But the problem is that, on private land, it is the landowner's responsibility. The ACT, as I mentioned, in 2010 had 379 nests reported on public land. This figure would now be much higher in Victoria. It is really up to councils to go out and destroy them.

More concerning is that—this is where it does get concerning, and these are the only figures we have—between 1 July 2002 and 30 June 2005, there were 379 admissions to hospital due to wasp stings. That greatly concerns me because, as everyone in Victoria would know, last year was a really bad year. The symptoms include swelling, redness, raised lumps and pain. European wasps can sting multiple times and they also emit a pheromone after stinging that basically lets all the other European wasps know to come along and attack.

I keep thinking about if you have a child in school who is eating a play lunch near a nest and is then stung. It can be a very scary time. I have spoken to a number of my schools in La Trobe. What happens at playtime when all the wasps are coming is that they have to leave the area. The wasp nests can get up to 100,000 wasps. So we are talking about something rather significant. Each wasp can travel up to 500 metres to source their food. Last year, they were absolutely in plague proportions.

Basically, the first batch of workers construct the nests for the queen, who just lays more eggs and more eggs. They are from Europe and each winter, because of the coldness in the European winters, most of them are actually killed off. This is not happening in Victoria and across Australia because it is a lot warmer.

I am putting a proposal forward. I have met with the CSIRO. They have informed me that potentially we could look at what is known as GM RNAi technology. The CSIRO proposes to extend the non-GM, orally delivered RNAi technology that has been developed for mosquitoes and fruit flies and apply it to the European wasps. I should explain that this term RNAi refers to RNA interference. RNA itself controls gene expressions or how genes behave.

I am working closely with my Victorian colleagues. A number of us have signed a letter to the Prime Minister. I have also spoken to Minister Christopher Pyne and Minister Greg Hunt about potential funding solutions. This is a serious issue, especially for those who are stung and have anaphylactic reactions to that.