Assessing Maritime Safety Governance in Victoria

Background

There have been considerable changes to maritime safety oversight in Victoria in recent years, including the establishment of Safe Transport Victoria and Ports Victoria. An independent review of the Victorian Ports System released in 2021 found that arrangements for the regulation of navigational safety in the ports system were unnecessarily complex and inconsistent across the different commercial trading ports. There was a lack of clarity about roles and accountabilities for port users and stakeholders, potentially affecting safe port operations and posing reputational risk to the Victorian Government. In response to this review, Ports Victoria and Safe Transport Victoria were formed. 

Recognising the role of Victorian commercial ports in freight transport, and their contribution to the economy, an in-depth assessment of Victoria’s maritime safety governance was pursued to ensure operative efficiency.  

Our role 

NineSquared was engaged to undertake an assessment of Victoria’s commercial maritime safety governance. Acknowledging recent changes to Victoria’s port safety governance model, it was important to take a high level stocktake of roles and responsibilities across agencies that support maritime safety in Victoria and develop a report to compare the Victorian model with port safety governance models across Australia and around the world. The primary objective was to identify where risks were borne by gaps in the governance framework, overlap between agencies, lack of clarity within or between Agencies about proper remits and the inefficiencies in the way framework is implemented between agencies. The study also included targeted industry and jurisdictional consultation to gain insights into the practical challenges and needs in Victoria’s commercial port system. The findings of this project informed future state operation and structure of Victoria’s commercial port system.  

Results

The report highlighted opportunities to improve the oversight of safety at Victoria’s commercial ports. Opportunities to improve governance included establishing clearer regulatory oversight of Safe Transport Victoria’s duty holders under the Marine Safety Act, improving oversight clarity and minimising efficiency risks by removing areas of duplication and overlap in legislation and in the way that responsibilities are carried out in practice, establishing clear arrangements for communications and technical advice for port community key partners and industry, and establishing regulatory oversight of mooring service providers by closing regulatory gaps. NineSquared provided future model options including key recommendations to remedy governance gaps. 

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