Agriculture

The Full Federal Court has dismissed an appeal in a class action over the government’s 2011 live exports ban, which will have consequences for the damages that can be awarded to cattle exporters. 

An animal rights group has told the High Court it retains copyright in footage it took while trespassing on a Victorian abattoir and that it “makes no sense” for the slaughterhouse to have rights to the footage.

An appeals court has found the owners of a cotton farm in Queensland are liable for causing nuisance to their neighbours after building a flood mitigation levee, despite the levee being a “common and ordinary” use of the land.

Aquaculture group Seafarms wants the court to strike-out a suit by Kathmandu founder Jan Cameron alleging the ASX-listed company misled shareholders about its plans to build the world's largest prawn farm in the Northern Territory.

The Commonwealth has hit back at a class action’s appeal over the government's 2011 live exports ban, denying that it lied to an Indonesian minister about the ban. 

A class action over the government’s live exports ban is appealing a finding that no additional cattle would have been exported to Indonesia absent the prohibition, saying the judge failed to fully appreciate the “unheralded” ban.

The state of Victoria has been hit with a $500,000 judgment after three public servants were found negligent for failing to advertise Crown leases over Gabo Island and Tullaberga Island, a failure which has shut abalone fishers out of the area since 2019. 

A sublessee of an eight acre agricultural property in Austral has failed in his bid for nearly $500,000 in compensation after his crop was destroyed when he refused to vacate. 

A tribunal has refused to terminate a lease for a dairy farm in Raleigh, NSW and declined to order $500,000 in compensation over claims the tenants are responsible for deterioration in the property, including the “uncontrolled infestation” of a noxious weed. 

Grand Ridge Plantations has lost an appeal seeking to halve the official valuation of its Gippsland timber forest, with a court finding that the trees on the land must be included in its assessed value.