Key players from across northern Australia's cattle industry have descended on Sydney, as the Federal Court looks to determine the level of compensation owed for the Gillard government's ill-fated ban on live exports to Indonesia.
The cattle industry won its class action in 2020 when the Federal Court ruled a six-month order by then-agriculture minister Joe Ludwig, which banned the trade to Indonesia, was invalid and the minister committed the tort of misfeasance in public office by instituting the ban.
Despite this, hundreds of claimants are still waiting for compensation.
The cattle industry has claimed it is "coming with a vengeance" for compensation as it seeks a resolution.
The class action against the Commonwealth submitted its final analysis of the financial impact of the ban, pinning the damage at $1.2 billion, with a further $800 million in interest in 2022.
Only the lead claimant in the class action, the Brett Cattle Company, has been paid.
Why hasn't compensation been paid?
Essentially, neither party can agree on a settlement figure.
In late 2022, the federal Labor government offered to settle the case for $215 million — this was rejected by the industry and labelled "insulting".
The government then rejected the industry's counteroffer to settle for $510 million, plus costs and interest.
A spokesperson for Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the current government made the "very substantial settlement offer of $215 million" to cattle producers within months of taking office.
The spokesperson said it was "a matter of public record that the applicants [in the case] were considering that offer for many months."
"Ultimately, if the parties cannot settle, it will be a matter for the Federal Court to decide precisely how much the Commonwealth owes the applicants," the spokesperson said.
"It's worth noting even though the live cattle ruling was made in 2020, the former Coalition government did not settle the case with the applicants and left this to the incoming Labor government to resolve."
What was the impact to the cattle industry?
That is what the court case seeks to quantify.
David Connolly is the general manager of the Tipperary Group of Stations and former Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association chief executive.
He said now was the time to go over all the evidence the cattle industry had gathered.
"We're going to court today to try and determine how many cattle were actually [lost exports] as part of the ban," Mr Connolly said.
"So the judge has to listen to both sides of the story and say, 'Alright, we think this many cattle were detriment [sic].'"
Furthermore, the claimants are seeking to establish the impact of the ban was not justified.
In his opening remarks, lawyer for the cattle producers Chris Withers said Mr Ludwig's ban was a political solution to a political crisis.
"[The minister] knew it would be a major disruption and he knew it would stop exports when he made that decision with reckless indifference to validity,"
Mr Withers said.
"This caused a distortion of the live cattle market. We can discern the ongoing effect the control order had in 2012 and 2013 because of a view formed in the Indonesian government that Australia was no longer a reliable trading partner."
Those set to testify include Bayu Krisnamurthi, the former vice minister of Trade of Indonesia and Joni Liano, the former head of Indonesian Beef Cattle Businessmen's Association, among others.
Proceedings are set to run until May 12.
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