Phone: (03) 5135 4444
December, 2023
Field of dreams
The Gippsland Research Farm became a hub of new ideas for agriculture recently. Dave Caldwell, Liz Semmens, Allister Morris and Trent Anderson were among attendees to the Spring Field Day. STORY - PAGE 10 Photo: Lyric Anderson
End of an era for Pakenham saleyard THE Livestock Exchange in Pakenham, Victoria’s fourth largest cattle saleyard by throughput, will close in June 2024, the Beef Central website reported. Escalating land taxes at its location on Melbourne’s eastern metropolitan fringe have forced the decision, according to its owner, the privately-owned Victorian Livestock Exchange. The Pakenham Victorian Livestock Exchange transacts about 100,000 store and prime cattle a year, drawn mainly from Gippsland properties to the east and from the Yarra Valley to the north and the Mornington Peninsula to the south. The managing director, Brian Paynter, said rises in land values and a recent doubling in the rate of land tax being charged meant the decision was unavoidable. “It became a situation where we were just not able to pass those costs onto the vendors via the agents, so the decision was fairly clear,” he said.
“It took us by surprise, we didn’t realise until we opened up our most recent council rates notice that the rates had doubled and land tax was going to more than triple, so we didn’t expect that to be the case. “We were faced with the option of perhaps playing it out for another two or three years but it is just simply not viable, the land values were going to increase exponentially and quickly, we just couldn’t afford to hang onto it for any length of time.” He said it was fairly evident over the past 10 years that urbanisation was becoming an increasing issue at Pakenham. “We didn’t know when it would catch up with us but it certainly did in this new financial year," he said. “Our budget and our yard dues were thrown completely out of kilter, so the decision was fairly clear at the end.” When it opened in February 1999, the Pakenham Victorian Livestock Exchange was the first privately owned, fully-roofed,
soft-floored, multi-agent, modern livestock exchange in Australia. It provided the template for innovations that have shaped new saleyard developments across the country since. The Pakenham facility replaced the Dandenong saleyards closer to Melbourne which had operated for about 20 years, which in 1987 replaced the 130-year-old Newmarket Saleyards in the inner-city suburb of Flemington. Both were ultimately squeezed out by expanding urban development. While it was always likely that Pakenham’s location would eventually see the VLE facility eventually fall victim to a similar fate, the announcement the facility will close in June 2024 caught many by surprise. Dave Setchers, livestock manager with Alex Scott & Co, Pakenham, one of the region’s longest serving private agencies, said agents thought the facility would have about 10 years left, and had been told they
would be given at least two years notice before a closure was imminent. “So to be informed that it will close in a little over six months, it was a bit of a shock,” he said. When the Dandenong Saleyards closed, the local industry was very grateful to VLE for building a state-of-the-art facility at Pakenham, he said. “I remember saying to myself – ‘we’ll be right here for 50 years, we’ll never get built out’. But you have got to navigate your way through traffic to get into the place now, so it has certainly seen a big change, the world has caught up with it.” Mr Setchers said the loss of the facility would displace a lot of cattle in the area. “There is a certainly a fair bit of disappointment, we’re just working through ringing everyone," he said. Continued Page 3
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