Great Southern court bid

Investors wiped out in the collapse of Great Southern have made a bid to introduce new evidence in court that allegedly shows that damning information about the health of its forestry plantations had been concealed by management.

The Supreme Court of Victoria was told on Thursday that electronic documents found as the trial had almost concluded could now shed further light on the failure of the $1.8 billion managed investment scheme in 2008.

Garry Bigmore, QC, for the investors, said the evidence showed the extent to which investors had been "misinformed" about productivity problems in some published product disclosure statements.

"With the arrival of the new evidence, the extremely poor performance of Great Southern's 1994 to 1996 timber schemes was fully exposed," he said.

But the counsel for the defence, Andrew McClelland, blasted the "artificial way" the plaintiffs had tried to link the collapse of Great Southern to "minutiae" about forestry practices, when it was really linked to funding problems caused by the global financial crisis.

The trial, before Justice Croft, continues on Tuesday.