A live cattle export ban class action is set to go back to court more than 12 years after the federal government’s unlawful 2011 ruling to suspend the trade with Indonesia.
Key points:
- Australia’s cattle industry has not accepted an offer of compensation to settle the class action against the 2011 ban
- The industry expected compensation worth upwards of $1.2 billion, the Commonwealth offered $215 million
- It is expected the matter will now be dealt with in court
The assistant secretary for the Office of Legal Services Coordination in the Attorney-General’s Department, Michael Johnson, told Senate Estimates in May that the Commonwealth had made a $215 million settlement offer with a July 21 deadline for acceptance.
Luke Bowen, the chief executive of Cattle Australia, said the offer was a far cry from the $1.2 billion the class action proposed damages to cost in 2022.
“With a feeble offer like that on the table let’s go back to court,” Mr Bowen said.
“The court will determine the volume of lost sales to Indonesia over the period of years that followed the ban.”
Mr Bowen said the discrepancy between the $215 million offer and the $1.2 billion damages figure from the class action came down to arguing the extent of the “flow-on effect”.
“This has obviously been a hurdle the Commonwealth has been unable to get themselves over,” he said.
“It’s not just that period of time when the ban was in place, we’re actually talking about the number of years that followed when we saw the volume of trade decline dramatically through permits that were issued from Indonesia.”
It is the second settlement offer made by the Commonwealth this year, with the first rejected in February.
In a statement, the Department of Finance said “the Commonwealth is yet to receive a substantive response from the class action lawyers”.
Lawyers representing the class action have been granted an extension until September to respond to the offer — the same time the case it set to reappear in court.
Long time coming
This has been a 12-year fight for Michael Thompson who runs Mundabullangana Station, 70 kilometres south-west of Port Hedland.
He was one of the original claimants in the class action, campaigning and providing funds for the legal fight against the Commonwealth.
“I was that angry … I became the first Western Australian and the only one of 21 [to join the class action],” Mr Thompson said.
He estimated the ban “conservatively” cost his family business as much as $2 million in the first five years alone.
“A lot of other pastoralists would’ve lost [more]. I don’t think you could put a value on it,” he said.
Mr Thompson expected the overall legal stoush would have cost the class action at least $30 million in legal fees alone so far.
And he said he will stay in the fight, “whatever it costs”.
“I’ve seen what it cost my family back then, and I’ve seen the damage it’s done to so many families throughout Australia that were involved — not only in the pastoral industry but in the livestock industry generally,” he said.
