Ben Anthony and his family have seen the boom and bust cycle large commercial developments can have on Gippsland’s towns and communities, but he believes an emerging industry in the shire will see thousands of long-term jobs come back to the region.
Past, present, future: Speaking to the Monitor on the windy dock of Port Anthony, a family business he runs with his father, brother and son in Corner Inlet, Anthony described how there used to be over 400 full-time employees at the port when ExxonMobil used it to launch gas rigs into the Bass Strait from the 1960s to 2010s.
But over the decades, as gas drilling wound down in Gippsland due to a lack of supply, those permanent jobs faded away.
“Over a period of time it eroded the community,” Anthony said. “We see offshore wind as being an opportunity for the community to get back something that it once had.”
What happened: In August, a $4.7 million infrastructure plan funded by the Victorian and federal governments identified Port Anthony as a hub for the offshore wind industry - signalling it as a potential zone for development.
The plan, announced by both the South Gippsland and Wellington Shire councils, aims to prepare Gippsland for 15,000 expected jobs during the construction of offshore wind farms and over a thousand long-term maintenance positions in the decades after.
The nine proposed projects in Gippsland’s Offshore Wind Zone.
What they said: Anthony said the announcement hasn’t come as a surprise to him, after conversations with almost all of the offshore wind companies - some he began speaking to over 10 years ago.
“It's been a very long gestation period,” Anthony said.
With Gippsland’s first offshore wind auction started this week, he’s hopeful permanent jobs aren’t that far away.
Ben Anthony at his family’s port.
Jobs beyond construction: As a maintenance hub, Port Anthony won’t be shipping out large turbine blades and towers, but will act as a central location for the support and servicing of the 900 expected Bass Strait turbines.
“Being a long-term resident of Gippsland, we really want to give the community a platform on which they are able to build their careers and have meaningful employment long term.”
In terms of permanent maintenance jobs, Anthony said some developers are estimating there could be up to 150 local employees respectively.
“Offshore wind has a heavy maintenance component to it, so those numbers are quite plausible,” he said. “People don't want jobs; they want careers, and a career path in offshore wind has a lot of options attached to it.”
Looking out on Corner Inlet.
Work already underway: Port Anthony is already switching its operations to assist offshore wind developers in studies preparing for construction.
“Historically, the facility's central activity has been oil and gas support services. However, over the last couple of years, a lot of our activity has been in preparation for offshore wind,” said Anthony.
Anthony said there’s roughly 500 commercial boats moving in and out of Corner Inlet every year, but he doesn’t expect that number to change much as development picks up.
Keep it in Gippsland: For Anthony, one of the big things he’d like to see out of these developments is young people returning to Gippsland to buy houses, start families and secure permanent employment.
“I've watched my own kids go to Melbourne because the opportunities are more abundant in the city than they are here,” he said.
“The community has had this before under a different scheme, and there's an opportunity to have it again - to enjoy that prosperity without affecting the landscape.”