Cattle farmers have accused Labor of launching an appalling, contemptuous and “outrageously misleading” attack on them, after Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus accused them of trying to bolster profits at taxpayers’ expense.

Mr Dreyfus last week wrote to the National Farmers’ Federation to say the government was not budging on its $215 million offer to settle the decade-old class action stemming from Labor’s 2011 live export ban.