The Kira Tick Gate

FEATURE

Tick gate death trap

With every good reason, the equestrian community is rallying over an out-dated border crossing. SONIA CAEIRO ALVAREZ investigates.

Melinda Rechichi and daughter Chloe with Jazdan Raphaela (L) and Kenlock Sylvestro (R) (Image courtesy Mahalia Ashforth).

On a steamy Sunday afternoon, just before a storm breaks in Queensland’s southeast corner, a dozen horse floats, goosenecks and semitrailers line up along Miles Street, a high traffic residential Gold Coast road. They are queuing to get into the Kirra Tick Yard facility for the mandatory check and preventative cattle tick spray required for all horses crossing into NSW. It’s the end of an event day, and there’re a few hundred horses on the highway behind them. Temperatures are reaching the mid-30s, and horses are overheating and becoming distressed as they wait to enter the facility.

Dressage horse owner and competitor Jane Russell* remembers vividly the last time she entered the tick gates as it was her last. “My goose neck just fitted in but exiting was a nightmare,” she says. “There’s a lot of traffic, it’s hard to see past parked cars, and the slope is very steep as you edge out onto the road. As I was turning out a car came flying past. I slammed on the brakes and my horses banged against each other. They were ok, frightened and a bit bruised, but I was freaked.”

Sandy Thomas* also has vivid memories. In a similar incident, the oncoming vehicle collided with her float, significantly damaging the vehicle and terrorising the filly inside. She no longer attends Queensland events.

Stories about the perils surrounding this facility abound: the horse that died a few years ago after a collision; the woman who had a flat tyre, missed the 8.00pm closing time and had to camp out for the night with her daughter and horses at Mt Tambourine; the young woman who broke a finger leading a fractious, terrified horse into the crush; the woman whose horse slipped its head collar and galloped down the road into traffic.

Almost all horse owners cite safety for horses, vehicles, owners and handlers, as well as bad traffic management and community impact as issues of extreme concern. Not least of which is why horses, at their owner’s expense, need to be subjected to Bayticol, a toxic spray containing flumethrin, an acaricide pesticide designed to kill cattle ticks.

The perceived death trap on suburban Miles Street is considered by the horseowning community to be a dangerous, out-dated facility that’s been the subject of complaint and controversy for years. An equine community Facebook page set up in late 2019 – ‘The Change the Kirra Spray Yards Fiasco – Tell your story’ – gathered thousands of views and hundreds of testimonies from aggrieved horse owners in just a few short months: from the perils of navigating much loved and often highly valuable animals through the gauntlet of trucks mounted on kerbs, and leading horses across a high traffic road, to staff donning hi-viz vests to aid traffic control, and being drenched with chemicals - the efficacy of which is questionable according to the latest science. “There are many problems with the site and the main issue is that it’s just not fit for purpose,” Melinda Rechichi says, a competition horse owner based just south of the border in the Tweed Valley, and instigator of the community Facebook page. “Many people can literally not fit into the facility due to the size of their vehicle. They have no choice but to park across the road and lead the horses through traffic and manually take them through the spray yards. It’s incredibly dangerous but they have no other option.”

Melinda mentions being inundated with hundreds of stories: “Not just about fitting vehicles in, but the fast traffic, the football grounds next door with loud crowds and blasting horns spooking horses, injuries, vehicle damage, local foot traffic in danger, and of course, why we have to do this in the first place. It’s cattle tick, not horse tick. Why are we paying the price for a cattle industry problem?”

Going through the facility currently costs

Workers wear protective gear when spraying with Bayticol (Image courtesy Angela Delgiacco).

With a truck too large for the facility gates, owners have no option other than to unload their horses next to a busy road (Image courtesy Katrina Parlevliet).

$5.50 per treatment. Failing to do so results in hefty fines and a visit from a DPI inspector. With 500 to 600 horses going through the border gates each month the revenue is significant. The local equestrian community is paying up to $40,000 a year, a fraction of the total when including income from fines, for a problem widely considered to be the responsibility of the cattle industry.

That problem is the cattle tick. Horses, amongst other animals are classified as low-risk secondary carriers, so why vaccinating cattle isn’t the primary control mechanism remains an unanswered question. That horses are possible secondary carriers is understood. However, no department contacted while researching this story could say why other secondary carriers such as dogs are not subject to mandatory inspection and spraying.

Despite the latest CSIRO evaluations on acaricide resistance, which according to some experts was the basis for altering the policy on the Northern Territory/Queensland border, NSW persists with out-dated science, in an out-dated facility that poses high risk and is dangerously unfit for purpose.

Complicating the matter is the number of public service and government departments involved in managing the facility. The NSW Department of Primary Industries which owns and operates it, and the Gold Coast City Council (GCCC) that manages the land are the two primary stakeholders. However, the Tweed Shire Council, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Queensland Roads and Transport, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland (WHS), the Environmental Protection Authority, Biosecurity Queensland, Business Queensland, and the Federal Department of Agriculture, Meat and Livestock Australia all have involvement, or a stake in the border policy.

The politics are complex. The current policy black hole between the two states and the many departments involved results in the various bodies responding to questions by suggesting it’s another organisation’s remit. Queensland Roads and Transport directs traffic issues to GCCC, which directs access issues to the NSW DPI. During this bureaucratic tennis match, questions remain unanswered, solutions uninitiated and frustration in the equine community deepens.

Melinda and others have written to various departments, and if responded to at all, have received almost identical letters of dismissal.

The office of Mark Furner MP, the QLD Minister of Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries, responded to her correspondence in late 2019 by stating that the NSW DPI had advised him that it was “committed to the highest possible work, health and safety standards”, which included signage regarding unloading only in the facility, signage on non-admission, rubber matting in booths, lockable gates, and a widening of entrances and exits (which would alleviate the issues of large vehicle access but not the turning angles for large vehicles in high traffic). At the time of writing most of this had not occurred.

This response was repeated in letters from the NSW DPI and other bodies. Local MPs and councils have all redirected queries back to the DPI. None of the correspondence addresses any of the core concerns of horse owners. The circular buck passing is almost laughable were it not so serious.

Melinda has sent several letters to GCCC with no response and finally submitted an official complaint to the Division 14 Councillor around the perilous exit of large vehicles from the facility. When Council was contacted regarding the issues raised, including land ownership, WHS management, lack of road signage on speed, and safety warnings regarding livestock movement, a GCCC spokesperson explained the site was not ‘leased’ but was State land set apart as a reserve for stock dip purposes under the control of the Director General of the NSW Department of Primary Industries as Trustee.

Bare Equestrian available at

The spokesman said that “the city’s road safety team has assessed the site and signage on site and advises that ‘All livestock must be unloaded within the compound’. WHS at the facility is a matter for the respective Agriculture Departments in QLD and NSW as is the query on the facility being moved to a ‘safer’ site. We trust all horse owners/ transport carriers to abide by this signage to ensure there are no safety issues. Should the horse carrier be unable to abide by the conditions, they are advised to contact the facility to make the necessary arrangements.”

Horse owners with vehicles too large to access the facility have limited alternatives. They can arrange for private spraying before leaving QLD, which is expensive and not practical for many. There is also the option of a second border crossing at Mt Lindesay, 140kms west of Kirra and a five-hour round trip, which is simply not feasible for those travelling from South East Queensland to northern NSW.

Of primary concern for all those who can fit through the gates is the steep slope and fast-moving traffic - a combination causing anxiety to drivers, and damage to vehicles and animals as large carriers lurch onto Miles Street attempting to avoid oncoming traffic. To this, GCCC issued a statement stating that, “the City has been working with DPI and the Divisional Councillor to improve road safety in the area. We will soon install a yellow no stopping line on the eastbound side of Miles Street to improve access into the facility and improve visibility for vehicles leaving.”

Unhelpfully, the letter also indicates the installation of additional signage on the westbound side of Miles Street ‘to remind users that livestock should not be unloaded on the roadway.’ This response once again failed to address the perennial issue of large vehicle access and the facility being unfit for purpose. At the date of writing, there is still no warning sign to drivers of a livestock facility, and once again Council directed all further enquiries to the DPI.

One ‘Change the Kirra Spray Yards’ Facebook post was a video of a large Sydney Horse Transport vehicle and the trauma experienced by valuable horses. Spray yard staff prohibited the witness from taking images and video on site so she moved to the main road, and with the driver’s permission continued filming.

“On the side of the road yesterday at Kirra spray yard,” her post says. “Two colts, two racehorses and four very frightened yearlings - scared and rearing in the crush … then having to be loaded again with the gates open, across the sidewalk with people walking their dogs. It was scary to watch as they were obviously not used to being loaded. The lovely driver said he is usually by himself but was lucky that a strapper caught a lift with him and helped. He said that the Queen had more of a chance of getting a tick then from where these horses were from.”

The frustration, and the devil, is in the detail. Complex DPI guidelines state that while a manual inspection is mandatory, as is carrying a Movement Record to comply with risk minimisation requirements and

In the crush (Image courtesy Angela Delgiacco).

A large horse truck parked on the verge of a busy road – dangerous for horses, handlers, traffic and pedestrians alike (Image courtesy Katrina Parlevliet).

making an inspection appointment, nowhere does the document state that compulsory preventative spraying is required, particularly in the case of stabled competition horses that did not travel to a tick zone.

According to Biosecurity Queensland, chemical sprays are not mandatory on low risk carriers unless manual inspection discovers evidence of ticks. The department states that: ‘Low risk tick carriers must be manually inspected and found tick free to meet the ‘tick free manual inspection’ risk minimisation requirement as stated in the biosecurity manual from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.’

To add to the frustration, despite DPI requirements for booking the facility to reduce waiting times and the subsequent build-up of trucks along the road, most interviews conducted, and anecdotal Facebook page stories, point to inefficiencies, particularly after large events when traffic returning to NSW is heavy and bookings make no difference to access and availability.

Lydia Plim, Kuluha Stud owner and Managing Director of Safety Makers, an independent risk and safety assessor specialising in equestrian safety, believes the facility is extremely dangerous and refuses to take her own horses through. Like many horse owners she no longer participates in events north of the border.

Her evaluation of the Kirra spray yards is blunt. “The facility has an Extreme Risk level,” Plim says. “I stopped taking horses through there after a horse died a few years ago and traffic increased to a dangerous level. It was a tough decision but I will not move horses through that gate until it’s relocated and operational practices are improved. If someone does get killed there it’s a potential manslaughter offence under WHS legislation, due to known risks, negligence and no adequate corrective actions.”

NSW DPI staff are capped and gowned in the treatment bays. Horse handlers are not. Aside from human health impacts, research into acaricide resistance has not been made available in NSW as it has in the NT, where border control guidelines differ from those of NSW. The NT government

If someone does get killed there it’s a potential manslaughter offence under WHS legislation, due to known risks, negligence and no adequate corrective actions

recently released information detailing resistance to Bayticol, asserting that, ‘the more often ticks are exposed to the chemical, the more likely they will develop resistance to it ... the treatment of European cattle in eastern Australia every three weeks has resulted in rapid development of acaricide resistance … under-dosing risks survival, enhancing tolerance/resistance to the chemical, as does the persistent use of one chemical group for tick control.’

A senior vet* with decades of equine experience and working knowledge of the biosecurity policies in several states agrees, saying that there are better ways to deal with cattle tick control.

“There is clear, available evidence that NSW DPI operates against all recommendations from NT DPI on reducing chemical resistance for cattle tick,” she says. “It also disregards the independent CSIRO assessment for the QLD Government’s introduction of the 2016 biosecurity bill. This legislation supersedes the 1915 Stock Act that required ‘inspect and spray’ which is the antiquated policy NSW still use.”

She adds that it must be proved that groomed show horses can sustain or instigate an infestation and thus justify the spraying program. “NSW needs to explain why they spray horses despite the NT and QLD’s better practice. There are long lasting cattle vaccines. Implications of resistance are serious. Certain strains of ticks in QLD are already totally resistant to Bayticol. NSW persists with out-dated and possibly harmful practices of continuing to spray ‘low risk secondary species’ despite warnings from other agencies that it could be disastrous and costly for the cattle industry.

“It’s odd that two states can have different requirements for the same issue - but one has a huge impact on safety, chemical complications, cost, inconvenience, animal welfare, road safety, and WHS, while assessing the identical issues. Why has NSW chosen the more arduous, costly and risky impact? All horse owners should be given a MDSA safety data sheet on the chemical used and give consent based on that data … nothing about this is open or transparent,” she says.

But there are possible solutions. The DPI could restructure the facility to allow larger vehicles to move through safely, or relocate it to a safer area. The spray regulations could be reviewed in line with the latest evidence. The onus for cattle tick control could be on the cattle industry instead of the equine sector. A comprehensive review of the facility is vital, especially in the space that has emerged with the COVID-19 border closure. It would give the equestrian community and the various government departments a chance to resolve a polarising situation that appears to serve no one.

As Melinda says, “If they can’t move it, all we want is for it to be at the very least accessible for all vehicles, based on best practice and science, and safe - for us and our horses. Why is that so hard?”

Melinda Rechichi and Kenlock Sylvestro (Image courtesy Mahalia Ashforth)

*A number of interviewee names were changed or omitted for this story.