Australia’s peak farming body is calling on the Federal Government to have a long hard look at the way it’s handling the compensation process for producers in the live cattle export class action.
Senate Estimates in Canberra last week revealed the Government had offered $215 million, a mere fraction of that being sought in compensation and interest.
National Farmers’ Federation President Fiona Simson said it was an insult to those producers whose livelihoods were shattered in 2011, when the ban was imposed, to be finally offered compensation that didn’t even come close.
“These cattle families have been put through the wringer time and time again. First with the ban, then through the legal process to fight it and now the government has finally come out with a figure so lowball it’s hurtful.
“Rubbing more salt in the wound was the deadline the Government gave producers to accept or reject the offer. Giving producers less than one month to respond when the government has taken more than a decade to provide an offer feels like bullying.”
Earlier this year the NFF called out the Government on not acting as a model litigant in determining the damages, for demanding more information from producers after the case was determined, and for deliberately protracting and politicising the case.
“There’s only so much people can take. We want these producers to know, we stand with them and to hang in there,” Ms Simson said.
“If the Government is deliberately drawing out compensation negotiations to wear down producers to accept a lesser amount, they need to think again.
“This is not a game, this is people’s livelihoods. We have ministers in Cabinet now, who were also in Cabinet at the time of the ban 12 years ago. You would think they would want to right this wrong.
“We want to close this unfortunate chapter in agriculture’s book and see that these producers are treated fairly and paid fairly.”
Stacey Davidson