Lucy Thackray: Australia's mice plague, trade with China and dealing with Coronavirus

About this episode

Lucy Thackray, a regional ABC video journalist based in western New South Wales, walks Vance through the surreal scale of Australia's ongoing 2020-2021 mouse plague — the worst in living memory, following a multi-year drought that wiped out predator populations followed by a sudden switch to ideal breeding conditions. She details damage that goes well beyond farm economics (though those losses are severe: up to $400,000 per farm on baits alone, and total crop losses despite repeated aerial baiting) into public health and daily-life horror: mice biting sleeping children and nursing-home residents, contaminating food and hospital supplies, and driving a national shortage of pet antidotes for rodenticide poisoning. She describes overcoming her own lifelong mouse phobia through forced immersion as a reporter, and the ethical debate over control methods — including PETA's controversial opposition to lethal control (and a mocked farmer proposal to mail live mice to PETA activists) and government hesitation over a highly effective but ecologically risky poison ("napalm for mice") due to secondary-poisoning risk to owls, fish, and other wildlife. The conversation broadens into COVID-19's toll on Australia: after early pandemic success (near-zero case counts via strict lockdowns), a stalled AstraZeneca/Pfizer rollout (7% full vaccination at time of recording) led to fresh outbreaks and renewed lockdowns just as much of the world was reopening, a reversal Thackray attributes largely to vaccine supply and rollout failures rather than public hesitancy. She and Vance also cover Australia-China trade tension (China's tariffs on wool, wine, and grain exposing Australia's dependence on export partners), the rise of goat farming and "buy local" sentiment post-COVID/drought, and a comparative note that Australian political and media polarization, while real, feels far less extreme than in the U.S. Vance closes by noting the episode fits into his self-described "ag series," using an unusual, visceral international story to build empathy for issues farmers face globally.

“Kids' uniforms have been eaten... there's just big holes... a mouse next to their baby and their baby's bleeding... my friend went into her baby and there was mouse poo next to him in his cot.”

“People have spent up to $400,000 on baits for their farms alone and they're losing so much money too... within a month or two, just as soon as it germinated... they've already ruined for some people 100% crop losses.”

“There is a national shortage of the antidote for dogs and pets that have eaten mouse baits... the minister who suggested it described it as napalm for mice.”

Key moments

• ~9-12%: Visceral mouse-plague damage details — biting sleeping children and nursing-home residents, a national pet-rodenticide-antidote shortage.
• ~17-21%: Debate over control methods — PETA's opposition to lethal control, a satirical farmer plan to mail live mice to PETA, and government hesitation over the ecologically risky "napalm for mice" poison (brodifacoum) due to secondary-poisoning risk up the food chain (owls, native Murray Cod).
• ~26%: Historical precedent — the Great Mouse Plague of 1984, including footage of a farmer using a flamethrower, contrasted with today's more constrained (but still desperate) control options.
• ~52-58%: COVID-19 vaccine-rollout failure — Australia's fall from near-zero case counts to renewed lockdowns, tied to a stalled AstraZeneca/Pfizer supply chain (7% full vaccination rate) rather than public refusal.
• ~63-66%: US-Australia political-polarization comparison — Thackray finds American media/political divisiveness "extraordinary" relative to Australia's comparatively similar two-party system.
• ~85-88%: China trade dependency — wool, wine, and grain export tariffs demonstrating Australia's vulnerability to a single dominant trading partner, and the rise of goat farming/exports to India and the Middle East as a hedge.
• ~92-96%: Post-drought ecological recovery as a hopeful counterpoint — rivers refilling, 500 pelicans appearing overnight in a town near ancient Aboriginal fish traps, framed as evidence that "when things seem like they can't get better, things can change so quickly."

Notable quotes

“There's a mouse next to their baby and their baby's bleeding... my friend went into her baby and there was mouse poo next to him in his cot.”

“The minister who suggested it described it as napalm for mice.”

“There was a movement of farmers that wanted to catch them and put them in the mail and send them to people from PETA.”

“The national rate of vaccination of being fully vaccinated is 7% in Australia... where the rest of the world is opening up, we're locking back down.”