A new shipping service from King Island to Tasmania would soon include legs to Westernport and Welshpool, in Victoria, according to owner of LD Shipping Les Dick.
LD Shipping owned a dedicated berth at Hastings and its new ship, the Go Lesath, would be making regular runs to Flinders Island as well, Mr Dick said.
He said the Go Lesath, had started transporting cattle in stock crates from Flinders and King Islands, to Tasmanian meat works and Victoria.
“We have a Victorian base at Hastings, which has to be great for livestock, cattle and sheep,” Mr Dick said.
“We have a Victorian base at Hastings, which has to be great for cattle and sheep”
- Les Dick, LD Shipping.
“We’ve taken on load off Flinders Island, we took seven trailers off there and everything went beautifully.
“It was the first run and the stock travelled absolutely fantastically; the boat is very stable, because of the low centre of gravity, and I was told all the cattle graded very well with JBS Swifts (Longford).”
Mr Dick said it was also planned to take a full boat load of cattle, for the grinding meat market, from King Island to Port Welshpool, in Victoria
He said he expected LD Shipping to become “quite big players, particularly for the bigger machinery, which is awkward to get onto other vessels.”
LD’s Hastings berth would allow for the transport of “curtain sided” trailers, as well as stock crates, he said.
King Island shipping group chairman Jarrod Reeman said members were assessing potential service providers.
“Suitability to the task is the key focus now,” Mr Reeman said.
“I would imagine we would get to preferred option by mid November, based on amount of interest ,” Mr Reeman said.
King Island mayor Duncan McPhie said he was concerned about fragmentation of the freight task, which could be overcome with a mechanism to encourage competition.
“If the cost is to go up dramatically, that is going to put a whole bunch of pressure on the island’s capacity to exist.”
He said the best way forward would be to get all interested parties together, to discuss their requirements.
“They need to say, we have ‘x’ TEU’s (twenty foot equivalent containers) per annum, compete for it,” Mr McPhie said. “Competition would help drive the cost below what we have got.”
