The Special Minister of State has asked Infrastructure Victoria to provide advice on the future capacity of Victoria’s commercial ports. This paper sets out the scope of our advice, and how we plan to prepare it. In particular, in line with the Minister’s request, we will focus our study on the timing of, need for, and location of a second container port in Victoria.

Commercial ports are large and long-lived pieces of infrastructure, often being used for over 100 years. They play a key role in anchoring supply chains as a gateway for the movement of goods in and out of Victoria. Commercial ports have significant economic, environmental and social impacts. Where they are located and how they operate are influential factors in determining whether these impacts are positive or negative, and how they are geographically distributed.

Planning and constructing a new port requires a long lead time. A decision on its timing must be based on the best available evidence, and strike a balance between pre-empting inadequate future ports capacity and the prospect of unused capacity in the short and medium term.

Many people are interested in how Victoria plans its future commercial port capacity, and we are interested in hearing people’s views. Your input will help us to build consensus on the key factors we need to consider in preparing our advice.

What this paper is about

This paper sets out Infrastructure Victoria’s scope and approach in preparing our advice on Victoria’s future commercial port capacity. It describes:

• our proposed process for preparing our advice

• key factors and drivers of change likely to affect further development at the Port of Melbourne, Bay West, and Hastings

• the additional work we are likely to undertake to inform our advice.

We want to provide this information early so that stakeholders and anyone interested can see how we intend to prepare our advice. We also want your input on our process, and whether we have identified all the key factors necessary for deciding when a second port will be needed, where it should be located, and what should drive these decisions. Your input will help us build consensus on the key factors and drivers of change that we need to examine as we prepare our advice.

What this paper is not about

This paper is not about providing a preliminary view on when a second container port may be needed or where it would ideally be located. These are important questions and we will release our evidence base for discussion in early 2017. We will use this evidence to form our advice to the Minister in May 2017. This paper is not about the current process of leasing the Port of Melbourne. We will consider the outcome of the lease transaction as we prepare our advice.