Across the street

Pest control at schools, childcare and aged care in Queensland

Queensland’s pest management regulation calls a school, a childcare centre, an aged care home or a hospital a sensitive place, and a licensed technician must not start controlling urban pests there for a customer until an activity risk management plan has been prepared. The technician must then follow that plan, and either hold an authorisation for these places or be supervised by someone who does.

General information, not legal advice. The rules here are Queensland’s, from the Medicines and Poisons (Pest Management Activities) Regulation 2021 and Queensland Health’s licence pages, listed at the foot of this page.

The regulation’s own words

What counts as a sensitive place

The regulation defines the term exactly, and the definition reaches past the building to the land beside it.

“sensitive place: (a) means a building: (i) used for providing aged care, child care or schooling; or (ii) used as a hospital; and (b) includes land adjacent to the building used for the same purposes.”
Medicines and Poisons (Pest Management Activities) Regulation 2021 (Qld), definitions, quoted in full with its dashes shown as colons

The definition takes in land next to the building, as long as that land is used for the same purposes.

The same rules cover a second group, high-risk places. These are not about who is inside but what happens there: the regulation lists intensive or high density livestock farming, and large-scale manufacturing, processing or storage of food sold mainly by wholesale.

Before, during, after

How a treatment at a sensitive place runs

The rules cover urban pest control done for a customer at a high-risk or sensitive place. Set out in the order a treatment happens, they look like this.

Before: the plan
The regulation says: “A licensed technician must not start carrying out a pest control activity for a customer at a high-risk or sensitive place unless a plan (an activity risk management plan) has been prepared for carrying out, and addressing the risks associated with, the activity.”
Before: the notice reaches the people inside
Before starting pest control for a customer, a licensed technician must give the customer a pre-treatment pest control advice. The regulation then looks past the customer: “If the manager of the place receives a pre-treatment pest control advice for a pest control activity to be carried out at the place, the manager must give notice to the attendees of the matters stated in the advice as soon as practicable after receiving it.”
During: following the plan
The technician must carry out the work in accordance with the plan, “to the extent reasonably practicable”. If they are unsure about anything, Queensland Health says they should contact an authorised technician to supervise and to ask for advice.
During: who supervises
The supervising technician does not have to be on site. Queensland Health says supervision can happen through an electronic device, such as a phone or a two-way radio.
After: the second notice
After the work, the technician gives the customer a second notice, the post-treatment pest control advice.

The extra authorisation

An ordinary pest management licence is not enough on its own. Under the Medicines and Poisons Act 2019, Queensland Health says, licensed technicians need the relevant authority to treat urban pests at high-risk or sensitive places. A technician applying for it must show evidence of the required competencies and pay the fee for amending a licence.

Queensland Health calls the activities a licence allows its authorisations. The licence card shows the type of activity its holder is licensed to carry out, so the card is the place to start. The guide to hiring a technician covers the card.

Two exceptions

Treating timber pests or pest birds does not need the authorisation for these places, and Queensland Health says no activity risk management plan is required for that work “at this stage”.

One wider rule

Fumigation goes further. Queensland Health says a plan is needed before fumigation at any location, sensitive or not.

What this means for a family

The duties in this guide sit with the technician and, for the notice, with the manager of the place. What they give a family is a set of things that should exist, and so a set of fair questions for a school, a centre or a home.

Was an activity risk management plan prepared before the treatment?
Does the technician, or their supervisor, hold the authorisation for sensitive places?
How does the manager pass on the matters in the pre-treatment advice to the people who attend?

There are reasons a centre might take care beyond the law. healthdirect notes that children absorb more chemicals through their skin than adults do. And one method has its own fit for these places: Victoria’s health department describes ant baits as useful where sprays and dusts cannot be used, giving hospitals as its example. That is Victoria’s guidance, given here for its reasoning.

Stinging insects near children

The allergy body ASCIA advises having nearby ant, bee or wasp nests removed by professionals, and says this applies to schools and early childhood education and care services, especially where enrolled children have a stinging insect allergy. The sting guide carries Queensland Health’s first aid, and the ants guide covers the ants that sting.