Queensland MP Bob Katter wants children to become cane toad bounty hunters, armed with low-powered air rifles in the hunt for pocket money.
Under Mr Katter's $2 million plan, young people would collect 40 cents for every toad they kill in a bid to save the environment from the introduced pest.
"It'll give a bit of fun for our kids and a bit of pocket money for them as well," the crossbench MP told reporters in Townsville on Thursday.
Senator Pauline Hanson also believes there should be money on the table for Australians who kill cane toads to help control the problematic species.
Australians should get 10 cents for every cane toad they kill this summer, according to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.
In a letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the senator has argued the bounty could help curb the invasive species whose poisonous toxin kills some native animals.
"As Queensland and neighbouring states go through our summer months, a further explosion of cane toads are hatching, adding to the estimated 200 million already here in Australia," Senator Hanson wrote.
Cane toads have had a huge impact on native animals since being introduced from Hawaii in 1935 in a failed bid to eradicate beetles infesting sugar cane and spreading across most of northern Australia.
Their toxins make them deadly to lizards, quolls, dingoes and crocodiles which eat them.
Senator Hanson said federal parliament must devise a bipartisan approach to eradicating the species, noting a $2 million investment in cane toad research in 2008 has not produced a solution.
In the meantime, a three-month cane toad collection reward scheme could help keep the toads at bay, she said.
"A 10 cent reward for the collection of each cane toad, I believe would encourage most Australians living with the pest to take an active role in reducing their numbers until a biological measure is developed."
Children should put down their iPads and join the effort and Australians receiving welfare payments should help too, the senator believes.
An upcoming parliamentary inquiry into the pest should also be held in up north, rather than the nation's capital, she has argued.
"As far as I know there's no cane toads in Canberra yet. Get the inquiry up in Queensland, get the real people who know what to do about this," she told Nine's Today on Wednesday.
Source AAP
