Federal Court judge Steven Rares rules former Labor agriculture minister Joe Ludwig was unlawful and acted ‘recklessly indifferent’ in 2011 live export ban

The Federal Court has found former agriculture minister Joe Ludwig acted “recklessly indifferent” when he banned live exports in 2011, and that the Northern Territory’s Brett Cattle Company was subject to “substantial damages”. The ruling in a class action led by the company against the Commonwealth and the former Labor senator was handed down by Justice Steven Rares this morning. Involving 300 plaintiffs seeking $600 million in compensation, the class action has been before the court for six years. The final judgment followed 18 months of deliberation by Justice Rares. The Gillard government shut down live exports overnight in June 2011 following an ABC Four Corners program which revealed horrific treatment of Australian cattle in Indonesian abattoirs. The move crippled the industry and the livelihoods of families and communities across Northern Australia and Indonesia. “I am comfortably satisfied, based on the whole of the evidence, that the minister was recklessly indifferent as to first, the availability of his power to make the (live export) ban order in its absolutely prohibitory terms without providing any power of exception and, secondly, as to the injury which the order, when effectual, was calculated to produce,” Justice Rares said in his judgment. “Accordingly, the minister committed misfeasance in public office when he made the ban order on 7 June, 2011.” Justice Rares concluded it was likely that “significantly more” than the 412,000 head exported in 2011 would have been exported to Indonesia had the minister not banned the trade. As a result, Brett Cattle Company was entitled to substantial damages and that the minister and the Commonwealth must pay its costs of the proceeding. The parties will return to court late in June to enable group members to be compensated.