Cattlemen muster for class action over live export ban
The Labor Party maybe sitting in the opposition seats, but we watch in awe as their damage to Australian lives and businesses continues to be exposed. The damage must have an enormous damping on our economy's ability to recovery, and still they they hold the existing Government and our economy to ransom by blocking policy's.
One wonders if Rudd and Gillard (and now Shorten)had or have any political sense in relation to social and and business justice?
"NORTHERN cattle producers and exporters have launched a class action against the commonwealth, challenging the “reckless’’ decision by the Gillard government in 2011 to ban live animal exports to Indonesia.
The case, filed in the Federal Court yesterday, seeks unspecified damages for misfeasance in public office and a declaration that the order suspending trade by then agriculture minister Joseph Ludwig was invalid. The court will be asked to rule on whether the decision to impose the one-month ban, in the wake of a shocking ABC Four Corners report exposing animal cruelty in Indonesian slaughterhouses, was made maliciously.
The statement of claim alleges Senator Ludwig “knew or ought reasonably to have known that making the second control order (the suspension of all live cattle exports to Indonesia) would significantly affect Australia’s long-term bilateral relationship with the Republic of Indonesia’’.
Northern Territory cattle producers Dougal and Emily Brett who run Waterloo Station, about 540km from Katherine, are the lead applicants. The couple had cattle worth about $1.4 million in their yards ready to be exported to Indonesia when trade was halted. The ban up-ended their lives and their industry.
Ms Brett was thrust into the public eye after she travelled to Canberra with the couple’s children — William, 7, Lachlan, 6, and Sophie, 4 — during the suspension to explain the impact on families such as hers.
“We’ve had 3½ years of just immense pressure on us,” Ms Brett said. “It’s financial pressure but it has taken a huge emotional toll on us as well. A lot of businesses have struggled so much because of that one decision.’’
Ms Brett said the case was not just about damages, but ensuring others were spared from their plight. “It’s about preventing this from happening to any other industry and any other business again because I would hate for anyone else to go through what we’ve had to go through, struggle like we’ve had to struggle.’’
The class action is being run by Andrew Gill, a partner at Minter Ellison, and involves cattle producers and exporters, businesses providing transport and mustering services, feed, agistment and others in the supply chain who suffered and continue to suffer loss and damages." http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...-live-export-ban/story-fn59nm2j-1227104154533
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The end result is, we all pay again and again!!
The polls should show Labor on about 15% after preferences, not where they are currently recorded!
