MPI said it is not permitted to pay out for professional consultancy fees and finance charges.
Cameron said the reality is that in preparing very complicated claims and contesting them with MPI farmers are well and truly out of pocket.
He asked the High Court to decide if that money could be recovered under the compensation scheme.
Cameron said the ruling means the High Court has ruled it has jurisdiction but it has not yet determined the legal point of whether professional fees and bank charges are recoverable.
“It’s a very interesting position. Legally it’s a novel decision and makes for an extremely good case so it’s good news,” Cameron said.
“If MPI don’t lodge an appeal the case could be resolved quite quickly as it only involves one day in court for legal academics to debate in front of a judge.
“When that can happen? I can’t estimate that now. It will be when we can get a day in the High Court.”
Cameron is confident of a good result for farmers.
“It’s looking pretty bleak for MPI in a number of ways in respect to whether or not the court will finally determine payment must be made of those professional fees and bank charges.
“We think there’s a very good prospect for farmers that these fees and charges will be recoverable.”
The problem for farmers meantime is the ongoing wait.
“There’s been some assumption that this ruling means they will now be paid – we are not at that point just yet.”
If the consequent hearing is successful then all farmers who have had claims settled should ask for them to be re-opened and farmers who have not yet settled claims should amend their claims to include professional fees and bank charges.
“This will be the next argument with MPI.”
MPI said it does not intend to appeal against the ruling.
“MPI does not intend to appeal the High Court decision in which the court found that it could consider the interpretation of section 162A of the Biosecurity Act, rather than referring it to arbitration,” an MPI spokesman said.
Cameron is preparing to hold meetings with farmers to discuss a class action plan.
“Class action will let farmers share the costs as acting in a unified way farmers will get a positive outcome more so than battling with MPI alone.”
When the decision to eradicate M bovis was made $566.3 million was budgeted across three years from July 2017 to June 2020. That included $213.3m for compensation.
The estimated total cost of the 10-year programme is $870m.
By March 2 $130.4m had been paid in compensation.
To date $263.3m has been spent on operational costs since the start of the response in July 2017.
That is all the programme’s operational costs including testing, on-farm operational costs, building leases, transport and capital expenditure, contractors including AsureQuality, staff salaries and technology and information systems.
It also includes $94.3m spent on the response before the decision to eradicate, which is also part of the budgeted $566.3m.
The M bovis Programme has appointed Massey University to research the direct impacts of the cattle disease to help accelerate eradication.
Researchers will investigate the impact on individual animals and herds on farms known to be infected, MPI chief science adviser and M bovis strategic science advisory group chairman John Roche said.
“They will measure how M bovis affects infected animals and herds, including any physical signs, effects on milk yield and composition and the duration of these effects.
“The results of this project will contribute evidence to help in the detection of M bovis, improve our surveillance tools and increase our understanding of how the disease spreads under different NZ farming systems, which is key in terms of eradication.”
The study is expected to take up to two years.
