Kiwifruit case heads to court

The claim seeks to hold the Government and the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) to account for the significant losses suffered by growers because of Psa.

The kiwifruit claimants say MPI should never have allowed kiwifruit pollen into New Zealand. They claim the Psa outbreak in October 2010 would never have happened had MPI followed its own protocols under the Biosecurity Act regarding importation of pollen from China.

Kiwifruit Claim chair John Cameron told Rural News the judge is very interested in ascertaining the scientific evidence behind it.

“That is when the case will get particularly interesting. Certainly evidence is pretty forthcoming from our team. The evidence the Crown will put against it – that will be the interesting part of the case.

“We are reasonably confident; we have had scientists from all over the world doing trials with us.”

The claim is for $376 million to $414m, he says. The first plaintiff is Strathboss Kiwifruit Ltd and the second is Seeka Industries. Cameron says the claim also represents roughly 30% of the kiwifruit growers in Gold and roughly 20% of the Green growers.

Cameron says the claim asserts that MPI was negligent about following its own protocols. They want to put that in front of the judge to determine whether there was a breach of duty of care.

He says the Government will certainly fight and understandably so “because we intend to show exactly what happened and why”.

Cameron says as a dairy farmer and an avocado grower, as well a kiwifruit grower, he wants assurance there is some accountability towards the primary industries of NZ.

“If this brings out greater accountability and making sure they do their job… I think that is a very, very good result,” he says.

“Personally I was lucky we had other portfolios and weren’t totally reliant on the kiwifruit industry.

“But in saying that, others got very much exposed, dealt to or had to increase their mortgages to get through to the stage they are at now. They still have suffered losses. Although you will hear in the media how well the kiwifruit industry is doing, the reality is it comes at a price and those losses make it very difficult for those individual growers to get part of the new Gold licences because they are selling at $300,000/ha. There is generally just a continued flow-on effect.

“Some had to get out altogether. Some were unable to join the claim because they were declared bankrupt and for them to be part of it they had to get bank authority and some never got it.”

In a statement of defence on its website, the Ministry for Primary Industries says it acted appropriately in its treatment of Psa-V as a biosecurity threat and acted in accordance with its international obligations and with scientific knowledge available at the time.

MPI argues there is a statutory immunity from civil proceedings in regard to actions taken under the Biosecurity Act, and that applies to this proceeding.