What a licensed technician owes you, in writing
In Queensland a treatment with a pesticide or a fumigant must only be undertaken by a person who holds a current pest management licence, and that licence is a card you can ask to see. Two notices go with a pest control treatment: one before it starts and one after it is carried out.
Why the licence exists
Queensland Health's own words on the point are plain: pest management technicians use pesticides which can be hazardous to humans and pets, and to make sure pest management activities are carried out in a safe and competent way, the department requires anyone carrying pest control activities for a fee to be licensed.
The rule itself is wider than pest control alone. On the department's page for pest management technicians, a pest management activity, which includes both a pest control activity and a fumigation activity, using a pesticide or a fumigant, must only be undertaken by a person who holds a current pest management licence. The same page puts the short version: to undertake pest management activities, a pest management technician must hold a current licence.
Getting one is not a formality. For a technician to be issued with a licence, they must gain certain qualifications appropriate to the type of pest control activity they wish to carry out.
A licence is not a general permission either. Pest management licences specify the activities the technician is permitted to complete, which the department calls authorisations.
The card, and the second licence
The department tells a customer exactly what to ask for: a current Queensland licence is carried as a photographic identity card, and it states the technician's name, licence number, date of issue and date of expiry, and the type of activity that the person is licensed to carry out.
For work on timber pests there is a second check. Business Queensland's page on treating the West Indian drywood termite says to ask your technician for evidence of their pest control licence, and records that for that work the licence must have endorsements for timber pests and fumigation with site environment specified.
One more licence sits above termite work specifically. For termite advice, for a report on termite management systems or infestations, or for installing a termite management system into a new building, the technician also needs a licence issued by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission. That licence is required in addition to the pest management technician licence.
The department's own instruction to householders is to ask to see the Queensland Building and Construction Commission licence if the work involves termite management or control.
The two notices, side by side
Both notices are the customer's paperwork, not the technician's. One comes before the work and one comes after it, and the regulation says what each one is for.
| The pre-treatment notice | The post-treatment notice | |
|---|---|---|
| What the notice is | A pest control advice, given as a notice before the work starts. | A pest control advice, given as a notice after the work is carried out. |
| When it must reach you | Before the technician starts the pest control activity at your place. | If the place is occupied, before the technician leaves it. If the place is not occupied, within 24 hours after leaving it. |
| What it must state | The regulation reaches past you too: a manager of a place who receives a pre-treatment pest control advice must give notice of the matters stated in it to the attendees, as soon as practicable after receiving it. | It is a legal requirement for a pest management technician to provide you with pest control advice that states the name and the active constituent of each pesticide used for the activity. It must be dated and signed by the licensed technician. |
When a plan has to come first
Some places are treated more carefully than others. The regulation applies its planning division to a pest control activity that involves controlling urban pests, carried out for a customer at a high-risk or sensitive place.
At such a place a licensed technician must not start the work unless a plan, called an activity risk management plan, has been prepared for carrying it out and addressing the risks associated with it. The work then has to be carried out in accordance with that plan, to the extent reasonably practicable.
A sensitive place is defined as a building used for providing aged care, child care or schooling, or used as a hospital, and it includes land next to such a building used for the same purposes. A high-risk place is one used for intensive or high density livestock farming, or for large-scale manufacturing, processing or storage of food for sale primarily by wholesale, and it includes adjacent land owned or occupied by the same person.
Fumigation goes further again: an activity risk management plan is required before a fumigation activity at any location, not only at a sensitive or high-risk place.
The inspection that comes before any treatment
The department's fact sheet for customers makes a point worth keeping: in some cases a pesticide treatment may not be necessary, and a thorough initial inspection by the technician is what determines whether a pesticide is the best choice for a particular situation, and then where to direct any pesticide applications so that they are most effective and least hazardous to you, your family and the environment.
Its advice for the day of the visit is one line: check on the safety precautions you need to take during and after the pest control treatment.
Checking a licence, and the law behind it
To check whether an individual is a licensed pest management technician in Queensland, the department's page gives one route: call the Health Protection Branch on (07) 3328 9310. Its customer fact sheet adds an email address for the same purpose, environmentalhazards@health.qld.gov.au.
For anything to do with termites and licensed providers of termite treatments, the department points to the Queensland Building and Construction Commission, on 139 333, available 24 hours a day.
One limit on a licence is worth knowing when a technician arrives. Licensed pest management technicians are not permitted to sell or supply Schedule 7 pesticides or Schedule 7 fumigants, which take a separate retail licence of their own.
The legislation behind all of it is the Medicines and Poisons Act 2019 and the Medicines and Poisons (Pest Management Activities) Regulation 2021.
The short of it
Ask for the card before the work. Ask for the second licence if termites are involved. Expect two notices, one before and one after. The one afterwards must name each pesticide used and its active constituent, and it must be dated and signed.