Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has accused cattle farmers of attempting to unreasonably boost their profits at taxpayers’ expense in the long-running lawsuit stemming from Labor’s 2011 live-export ban.

Mr Dreyfus this 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. He said the offer, if accepted, would represent a large lift in profits from live exports for 2011-12, which was already above adjacent years.