Updated March 31, 2017 13:11:33

Photo: Law firm Minter Ellison is trying to establish why a complete suspension of live animal exports to Indonesia was needed so urgently. (Matt Brann)

The Federal Court has ordered former agriculture minister Joe Ludwig to hand over private and internal emails and text messages as part of a $600 million class action against the Government.

Mr Ludwig has been accused of failing to disclose mobile phone records and using personal email accounts to conceal his role in the 2011 live cattle ban.

The class action is led by the Brett Cattle Company, which filed an interlocutory application in the Federal Court for communication between Mr Ludwig, his staff and former prime minister Julia Gillard.

This information would help law firm Minter Ellison establish why a complete suspension of live animal exports to Indonesia was needed so urgently.

Mr Ludwig banned live animal exports to 12 Indonesian abattoirs following an explosive Four Corners episode that revealed shocking mistreatment of Australian cattle.

Five days later, he implemented a six-month ban, leaving the industry reeling and many farmers without income.

The accusations

The businesses allege Mr Ludwig failed to provide text messages and internal emails that could be crucial to proving their case, and that he may have acted recklessly, with disregard and potentially unlawfully by imposing the second ban.

They say that instead he has supplied official letters, media stories and talking points.

Mr Ludwig used two private email accounts to communicate with his staff about the suspension.

"It appears the ministerial staff were instructed to send materials to these private email addresses," the application stated.

"Materials we have seen include a government brief and media talking points — we cannot know what else may have been sent to this account or how common this practice is or was."

The ABC understands Minter Ellison is seeking evidence that Mr Ludwig may have ignored legal advice that he did not have the power to implement the second ban, or followed direction from Ms Gillard's office to impose it, without seeking legal advice.

It is also alleged in the court application that mobile phones used by Mr Ludwig and staff were destroyed after the six-week period from which documents have been requested, and that the server containing internal emails has been decommissioned.

"These phones were later destroyed, presumably along with any SMS records. The Commonwealth advised that they considered SMS records were not discoverable as they could not contain 'advice' or 'briefings' — we disagree," the industry stated in the submission.

The Department of Agriculture has already handed over 45,000 documents for the case, while Mr Ludwig's office has provided "almost none".

Businesses involved in the three-year class action had hoped to settle out of court, but Mr Ludwig's refusal to provide documents could affect the case.

Farmers and families deeply impacted by the ban said they hoped Mr Ludwig would front the main hearing in July.

'Records have been destroyed'

Northern Territory Cattlemen's Association chief executive Tracey Hayes welcomed the decision from the Federal Court.

In a statement, Ms Hayes stated that the Association looked forward to Mr Ludwig attending the trial in July.

"He owes that to all of those affected," she said.

"Although the industry is doing well you can't shut up shop for two years and not still be hurting financially today. Some farmers had to sell their properties as a result of this ban — a ban seemingly timed to create the most financial damage to our industry.

"We still hold some hope that the Commonwealth will sit down and discuss this claim with us. If not, we will continue to pursue it with as much vigour as we have in the past."

Ahead of the ruling, she said she believed the former minister's office had shown a "complete disregard" for the formal discovery process.

"Throughout the discovery process it became apparent to us that the [former] minister had indeed been using personal emails to correspond on important matters relating to the live export ban, that he had instructed ministerial staff to correspond with him directly to those private emails," she said.

"Mobile phone records have not been produced as part of discovery, it would appear that the records and the SIM cards from those phones have been destroyed — there is a complete absence of any electronic voice recordings, SMSs and an apparent decommissioning of servers that would have otherwise house this critical information."

Ms Hayes said she was confident Mr Ludwig had been using personal emails, because among the 45,000 documents handed over, "a consistent line of information … to a couple of emails that appear to be a little bit off on the face of it".

"Further investigation revealed they were in fact personal emails of the [former] minister, and it became apparent there had been a direction given to ministerial staff to correspond with the minister via these personal email addresses," she said.

Topics: beef-cattle, rural, livestock, government-and-politics, trade, agribusiness, australia, indonesia

First posted March 31, 2017 10:03:10