Victorian Livestock Exchange's Pakenham agents on its closure

Pakenham saleyards workers and agents discovered on Monday that Pakenham saleyards will be closed from June 30 of next year.

The Exchange Way site employs up to 25 staff and has five agencies operating from its building, including Alex Scott & Staff, Baw Baw Livestock, Elders, Everitt Seeley & Bennetts and Nutrien Delaney Livestock & Property.

It was announced that agents will be relocated to operate out of Leongatha saleyards.

Nutrien Delaney Livestock & Property director Anthony Delaney said he was saddened and shocked by the sudden closure, which was "suffering the same fate" as past metropolitan markets, Newmarket and Dandenong.

"I've never understood how saleyards were so emotional for people until the one that you've worked in your whole life is going to be shut," he said.

"It's probably the last of a legacy of what Newmarket and Dandenong was."

Mr Delaney said they would prioritise their clients and ensure the announcement would not disrupt the selling season.

"We just want to make sure that it's put out there that it's still operating and not shutting tomorrow," he said.

"Business decisions will be made over the next three to four months, our client base stretches north of Melbourne, Yarra Valley, west of Melbourne and right throughout Gippsland.

"Our decision will be based on what's best to support that clientele."

He said he wanted to recognise the stakeholders affected by the closure, including livestock carriers, and described Pakenham saleyards as a barometer for other markets.

The facility processed more than 93,000 cattle in the 2022-23 financial year.

"There's everyone along a chain that makes a living, and because of the closure they're affected too," he said.

"Every Monday at 8 o'clock people look at Pakenham and Wagga to see what the market does in the cattle world.

"A big emphasis here is on the agents, but at a saleyard there's the carriers too, some will be affected because they only cart cattle to one or another."

Phelan & Henderson & Co director and South Gippsland Stock Agents Association president Simon Henderson, Leongatha, was critical of the state government's land tax.

"The rural people I've been talking to feel that it's another slap in the face to producers, this closure has been generated by the huge land tax bill," he said.

"It's more of a divide between city and country folk where the Labor government doesn't seem to give two hoots about what happens to good rural people."

He said the planned investment of the money would be "most welcome", and they would need to investigate changes of sale days with a future influx of cattle numbers.

"It will give rural producers in the whole of Gippsland significant infrastructure rather than just having to pay a tax bill," he said.

Mr Henderson said Pakenham saleyard's opening in 1999 set a new occupational health and safety standard for Victorian saleyards with its more-modern features of an enclosed roof and pre-sale weighing.

"Graham Osborne was probably ahead of his time when he built the Pakenham market and set a new standard for all saleyards, other than Bairnsdale," he said.

"We, as agents in Koonwarra, feel that it's been a large market, it's been a growing market centre for some time and a successful market."