Arabic version: محطة فيكتورية مباشرة تستعد لإعادة تشكيل شحن الماشية عبر مضيق باس

According to ABC News, a new cattle and freight terminal at Port Anthony in South Gippsland is expected to give beef farmers on King and Flinders islands a direct shipping route to Victoria by the end of October.

Bass Strait Freight operator David Harris is developing the service in response to growing interstate live-cattle markets. He said the terminal could handle up to 40,000 cattle annually from the islands. There are now 15,000 breeders on Flinders Island whose owners have farms in Victoria, Mr Harris said, and the company was responding to the trend of cattle being moved north.

The direct trip to Port Anthony is expected to take 15 hours. Mr Harris said bypassing Bass Strait Freight’s home port at Bridport in northern Tasmania could reduce the cost of cattle and general freight by about 50 per cent. The privately owned Victorian port at Corner Inlet is co-investing in the berth and livestock facilities with Mr Harris.

The service is intended to avoid constraints at Bridport, where a shallow channel gives large vessels only about a half-hour window on either side of high tide. Bass Strait Freight has bought two excavators to maintain the channel, but Mr Harris said that was not a permanent solution. Livestock and freight will travel on the modified Matthew Flinders IV, which will be permanently based at Port Anthony.

Flinders Island farmer Nick Campion said larger producers had increasingly developed markets and systems for moving stock north. He said a Victorian route could allow vessels to turn around and return without dealing with a tidal port, despite the longer journey compared with travelling back to Tasmania. Farmers on King and Flinders islands produce roughly half of Tasmania’s total cattle herd.