Governments put on notice that ag will always fight knee-jerk reactions

When the northern beef industry people whose lives were torn apart by the Gillard Government's 2011 suspension of the live cattle trade to Indonesia launched a class action against the decision, the entire agriculture sector watched on.

The outcome, nine years later, was a Federal Court ruling that the decision was invalid. That paved the way for hundreds of millions to be paid in compensation.

The words monumental, history-making, precedent-setting and landmark flowed quickly as the news spread.

The live animal export trade, the beef industry and farming in general will always have to battle groups in society who want parts, or all, of their industries shut down due to their own personal beliefs.

Dealing with that is accepted.

When governments are willing to act - illegally - on the pressures those often very powerful and loud organisations apply, agriculture sectors are at serious risk.

Experienced Northern Queensland beef producer Don Heatley, who was chairman of big industry body Meat & Livestock Australia at the time of the ban, said he had never, before or since, seen an industry so damaged, so quickly, by unwarranted government action.

Prime ministers since have described it as the worst decision an Australian Government has ever made.

The hard-fought court ruling was a watershed moment because it drew a line.

In the words of farm industry leader Jock Laurie, who was president of the National Farmers' Federation at the time of the ban: "None of us can speak to the mindset of politicians at any given time. But we now have a precedent-setting case to rely on so politicians can be assured if another dumb decision like this one is ever made, they will be pursued."

An ABC television in late May, 2011, aired footage of animal welfare abuses in some Indonesian abattoirs processing Australian cattle.

Animal activist groups mounted a massive campaign calling for the live cattle trade to be shut down.

In June, then Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig banned the live cattle trade to Indonesia.

The northern beef industry was brought to a standstill; businesses shut overnight, livestock were left stranded in loading yards, farming families were left without an income, southern livestock prices plummeted and international trade relationships took a terrible hit.

Even today, many of the businesses servicing the live export industry say they are still feeling the ramifications.

The ban was repealed in early July after the introduction of the Export Supply Chain Assurance System, a world-first animal welfare program which ensures, among many other things, that Australian animals are slaughtered only in approved facilities. ESCAS goes far beyond the requirements any other live exporting nation has put in place.

In 2014, an action was filed in the Federal Court seeking compensation for the financial losses suffered.

The lead litigants were the Brett Cattle Company, Waterloo Station in the Northern Territory.

The Australian Farmers' Fighting Fund backed the court action.

After 2048 days, including 18 months of deliberation by Justice Steven Rares, the finding was handed down in 2020. Justice Rares found that Mr Ludwig had committed the offence of misfeasance in public office.

It was the first time many Australians had heard the word misfeasance, which is the wrongful exercise of lawful authority.

It was the first time a minister has been found guilty of misfeasance anywhere in the Commonwealth.

Justice Rares found that Mr Ludwig was "recklessly indifferent" as to the availability of his power to make the ban order in its absolutely prohibitory terms without providing any power of exception and as to the injury which the order, when effectual, was calculated to produce.

He called the total prohibition 'capricious and unreasonable'.

Immediately after the ruling was given, Tracey Hayes, who acted as the class action facilitator, said the decision represented a win in the interests of process, good governance and a fair go and was recognition of the devastatingly poor government decision that sent shockwaves across the Australian agriculture sector.

"It puts all governments on notice and sets a pathway that will serve to ensure a higher standard of government decision making into the future," she said.

Just how monumental a win the result represented was possibly summed up by lawyer Andrew Gill: "In a complex piece of litigation there are usually three or four goes at discovery. We had 22 attempts."

The Bretts were paid their compensation but the other members of the class action are still waiting on negotiations with the Commonwealth to be finalised.