Two licences in South Australia
A pest control business needs a Pest Controller's Licence, and each employee who applies pesticides needs a Pest Management Technician's licence. SA Health issues both, under the Controlled Substances Act 1984 and the Controlled Substances (Pesticides) Regulations 2017.
A full technician licence needs the appropriate qualifications. A limited licence is for people starting their training: they must work under a full technician's direct supervision, and can hold it for at most 2 years.
What we couldn't confirm
We couldn't confirm at an official source whether SA has a public licence register, a separate termite category, or its own rules on pest control in rentals. We've left them out rather than guess.
Until then, ask to see both licences and ask whether they cover your job. You can also check with SA Health's pest licensing team.
Questions for an SA pest business
- What's the business's Pest Controller's Licence?
- Who'll be applying the pesticide, and is their technician licence full or limited?
- If it's limited, which full technician is supervising them?
- For a termite job, what do your licence and training cover?
Possums: release on the same property
All possum species in SA are protected by the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972. Trapping and releasing one needs a permit, or a permitted possum controller, and the conditions are specific: release on the same property, within 50 metres of where it was caught, within 24 hours and after dusk.
It's not possible to get a permit, or engage a permitted controller, to move a possum away from your property. SA's environment department says backyard possums are most likely common brushtails or common ringtails, native and protected, and able to do some damage. Proofing is where the effort goes.
Wasps, bees and look-alikes around SA
SA's environment department says European wasps can be highly aggressive if disturbed, and to call a pest controller about a nest on your property. Councils differ: the City of Adelaide doesn't currently destroy European wasp nests on private property, while the City of West Torrens arranges removal on council land or private property in its area.
West Torrens says it can't destroy bees, and points residents to a qualified pest control agent, an apiarist or the South Australian Bee Keepers Society. In Mount Gambier, the council's inspectors said in 2022 they're quite often called out for bees and wasps.
That mouse in the shed may be native: the yellow-footed antechinus is commonly mistaken for the house mouse, and native swamp rats have been known to move into veggie gardens. Around Murray Bridge, SA Health reported Murray Valley encephalitis virus in mosquito traps in January 2023, a health matter rather than a pest job. In Whyalla, carrion flower plants brought in to draw flies away from homes have spread onto the surrounding plains.
If we were hiring in SA
With no register we could confirm, we'd ask to see both licences, the business's and the technician's, before anything is sprayed, and ring SA Health if something looked off. For a possum, we'd want the permit conditions followed to the letter.
Want someone to look at it?
Tell us what you've seen and your postcode, and a local pest business that handles exactly that calls you to talk it through.
