Cattle producers on Tasmania's King and Flinders islands could see shipping costs fall by about half when a new freight and livestock terminal opens in Victoria's South Gippsland at the end of October, the ABC reports.

Bass Strait Freight operator David Harris is developing a direct service to Port Anthony, on Corner Inlet, that could carry up to 40,000 cattle a year from the islands, bypassing mainland Tasmania. The privately owned port is co-investing in the berth and livestock facilities with him. The crossing will take about 15 hours.

The service responds to farmers shifting cattle to markets interstate. "There are now 15,000 breeders on Flinders Island where the owners of those cattle have farms in Victoria," Harris said. "We think we can drop the cost price of cattle and general freight by about 50 per cent by going direct to the mainland."

The route avoids the company's home port of Bridport in northern Tasmania, whose channel is so shallow that most large boats can cross only in a half-hour window either side of high tide; Harris's ship bottomed out with 400 cattle on board late last year. His existing service to nearby Port Welshpool cannot consolidate freight, and an earlier bid to reinstate access at Apollo Bay failed.

Harris called the new service "make-or-break" for his company and a big change for how cattle leave the islands. The story was reported by Laurissa Smith.

Photo: Phillip Capper / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Source: ABC Rural