![The class action against the Commonwealth in relation to the 2011 ban on live exports to Indonesia heads back to the courts in October. Picture via Shutterstock. The class action against the Commonwealth in relation to the 2011 ban on live exports to Indonesia heads back to the courts in October. Picture via Shutterstock.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/38U3JBx5nNussShT8aZyYjc/e7a640ad-3515-4606-875e-bd932ae57f3e.jpg/r0_251_8688_5580_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The fight over money to compensate cattle industry people whose livelihoods were devastated by the infamous 2011 ban on live exports to Indonesia is showing no signs of coming to a conclusion.
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The class action of more than 200, dominated by producers, will head back to the Federal Court in October to argue they are entitled to at least $2 billion in damages based on the numbers of cattle that could have been traded had the ban not been imposed.
That blanket ban, slapped on the industry by the then Labor Gillard Government in response to animal activist footage, was ruled unlawful and capricious in 2020.
The Federal Court then determined producers were entitled to 215 cents a kilogram for steers that would have been exported.
The argument now is around precisely how many head were not traded due to the ban, with the government wanting to limit the effects to the six-week period of the ban and the class action arguing the flow-on effects went for years.
The government has offered $215 million, which both the class action litigants and the wider beef industry has seen as an insult.
One prominent live cattle supplier this week said: "Our government slapped Indonesia in the face and said you're not getting our cattle at all. Does anyone seriously think that did not have an impact beyond the six weeks of the ban?
"Does anyone seriously think Australia's relationship with Indonesia is not still suffering from that?"
Cattle Australia chief executive officer Luke Bowen said lawyers for the class action would present evidence in relation to the longevity of the impact of the ban, which it was hoped would establish the foundations for a "more realistic offer from the government."
He said it was obviously a detailed process to quantify what constitutes foregone sales.
There was enormous disappointment throughout the entire cattle industry that compensation was still being fought for, he said.
It's now 12 years since the ban, nine years since legal action was launched and three years since the Federal Court found in favour of producers.
Throughout all that, the industry had been prepared to negotiate and settle, Mr Bowen said.
Leader of The Nationals David Littleproud called on the federal government to "right this wrong" and find a suitable outcome before the case returned to the courtroom.
Returning to the courts only stands to cost the taxpayers even more, and prolongs the anguish of those cattlemen and women impacted by the ban, he said.
It was shameful that 12 years on the case was still in the courts, he said.