G'day Charley,

I'm afraid we Australians aren't terribly kind to ferals ... imported pests (other than us ... or all those European feral stock we brought)! Redbacked Spiders are a relatively late import - they probably arrived, snuggled down in a load of South American timber, in the mid 1860s ... they are latrodectus hasselti ... a first cousin to the north American 'Black Widow' latrodectus mactans.

There is a great old traditional poem / song about the same bitey beasty called The Spider from the Gwydir, that I posted two years and one week ago for bbc ... not yet in the DT, I'm afraid, but it's at:
Gwydir Spider .

Regards,

Bob Bolton