Kiwifruit Psa class action heads to High Court

Photo / File

A class action by kiwifruit orchardists and post-harvest operators, who allege the Government was negligent letting the Psa disease into New Zealand, will go the High Court next year, a spokesman for the group said.

The action, supported by 212 claimants, is seeking almost $400 million in damages for the government's alleged negligence in letting the Psa disease into New Zealand in 2010. An initial judgment on the substantive points may not be available until mid-2017, the group said.

As the deadline to sign up closed last Friday, growers representing 32 per cent of the total gold kiwifruit crop as at 2009/10 and 13 per cent of the green crop were confirmed as having completed the process of signing by to the claim.

"The growers who have signed up to the claim estimate they alone have suffered losses of $376.4 million as a result of the outbreak," a spokesman for the claim, Matthew Hooton, said in a statement.

"We expect the Treasury will need to include the claim as a contingent liability in the December economic and fiscal update," he said.

The claimant's allege the government was negligent when it let a specific shipment of anthers - part of the plant's stamen that contains pollen - from a Psa-ravaged part of China into New Zealand, and that this negligence is what caused the losses to kiwifruit growers during the subsequent Psa outbreak across the country.

"The government denies that direct connection. It also denies that its decision to let in the anthers from an infected part of China was negligent and even denies it owes a duty of care to growers in protecting our country from pests and diseases anyway," he said.

"We think the government does have a legal duty of care to growers, as well as its obvious moral and political duty to all New Zealanders to take the utmost care when protecting our country's agriculture and unique native flora and fauna from foreign pests, and it should be accountable through the courts when it carries out its critical biosecurity role."

Psa was first detected in New Zealand in the Bay of Plenty (Te Puke) in November 2010.
Since then the disease has spread widely throughout the Bay of Plenty and is now also present and is present in other parts of the North Island as well.

The gold variety - Hort16A - was particularly susceptible but the new variety, Gold3, has proven to be more resistant to the disease.