Port of Melbourne market rent inquiry 2025

The Port of Melbourne and its tenants use contracts to set property rents for port of Melbourne land.

This was our second five-yearly inquiry on the Port of Melbourne's process for setting land rents. It involves assessing whether the port's rent-setting process negatively affects consumers.

Our inquiry assessed the setting and reviewing of land rents at the Port of Melbourne over the period 1 November 2019 to 31 October 2024.

The inquiry considered whether the Port of Melbourne has:

• market power in relation to the process for setting and reviewing land rents
• exercised market power in a way that causes material detriment to Victorian consumers.

As part of the inquiry, we considered the:

• process used to set and review land rents
• Port of Melbourne’s compliance with this process
• extent to which the land rents paid are ultimately passed through to Victorian consumers.

Preliminary report

On 28 February we provided our confidential preliminary report to the Port of Melbourne.

We released our Final public report

We handed our final report to the Minister for Finance in May 2025. Our key findings include:

• The Port of Melbourne has power in the setting and reviewing of land rents, but it has not exercised this power to the material detriment of Victorian consumers
• The Port of Melbourne’s power has not been effectively constrained by the market
• The Tenancy Customer Charter and Clauses 18 and 19 of the Port Concession Deed have improved the rent setting process.

On 17 June 2025, the Minister for Finance tabled the report in Parliament.

Engagement and consultation activities

Online public forum and confidential drop-in sessions

We hosted a number of confidential drop-in sessions for stakeholders to meet with us and provide feedback directly between Tuesday 12 November and Thursday 14 November 2024.

On 7 November 2024, we held an online forum to provide stakeholders with information on our inquiry and opportunities to ask questions.  View the forum recording below.

Got a question?

Contact us for more information.