To mark 50 years since the Port of Brisbane Authority was established to deliver a modern deepwater port at Fisherman Islands, Port of Brisbane has released the second instalment of a newsreel series bringing the port’s history and stories to life.s
A FAMOUS Swiss watchmaker once said its products are not truly owned, but cared for on behalf of the next generation.
Port of Brisbane CEO Neil Stephens has adopted a similar view of one of Australia’s significant infrastructure assets.
“We are believers in being good ancestors,” he said. “The fact that I can sit under a tree at Fisherman Islands today because somebody planted it 30 years ago is a big deal for us.
“Today’s leadership at the Port benefits from decisions made by previous generations and we have a responsibility to leave the same legacy for future Queenslanders.”
Speaking to mark the Port of Brisbane’s 50th anniversary, Mr Stephens said the port was generally content to operate without drawing attention to itself. When its profile was raised, he said, it was usually because something had gone wrong — such as when ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred struck the region in 2025.
“When weather shuts us down, the community see impacts within days,” he said. “You start with fuel, then food, then businesses may be impacted.
“Most of what people wear, drive or consume has come through this port. It is a responsibility we take very seriously.”
Port of Brisbane CEO Neil Stephens. Image: Supplied
Mr Stephens said Queensland businesses and consumers were benefiting in 2026 from the decision made in the 1970s to move the port from Brisbane’s city centre to Fisherman Islands.
The move created “a capital city port that isn’t in the capital city”, with room to expand as trade and the city’s population grow.
The challenge now is to ensure the port remained contemporary and capable of meeting the demands of an increasingly high-scale, high-tech freight sector.
That requires the port’s current custodians to think beyond their tenure and make decisions that will support future users.
The position is Mr Stephens’ first in the port sector, following a career in finance and property in the United Kingdom and Australia.
Five years into the role, he describes the Port of Brisbane’s functions in four parts:
When Mr Stephens joined the port, he believed the scale of the facility, the range of opportunities and the commitment of its workforce were among the biggest revelations.
For a heavy industrial asset handling large volumes of cargo and equipment, environmental stewardship is an ongoing responsibility, Mr Stephens said.
“While we undertake maintenance dredging to ensure safe passage of vessels through the channel, we also invest heavily in the local environment,” he said.
“We don’t just limit our focus to Moreton Bay. We also invest upstream, rehabilitating riverbanks so less sediment enters the Brisbane River and ultimately Moreton Bay.
“Protecting the environment we operate in is incredibly important to us.”
The Port operates in an area of high ecological significance.
Running Brisbane’s marine gateway brings a range of operational and strategic challenges.
For Mr Stephens, the safety of the 10,000 people working within the precinct each day is paramount.
The port must also respond to changing global conditions, including fuel and fertiliser supply disruptions, uncertainty in international shipping and economic fluctuations that affect trade volumes.
“The Port must also balance growth with community expectations,” he said. “Our region’s population is growing and that means the amount of trade increases too. We need to grow alongside that – the challenge is bringing stakeholders along with us.”
The challenge will become more complex as both cargo demand and vessel size increase.
“The world is going bigger with ships that are being built because that’s where efficiency comes from,” Mr Stephens said. “We can handle today’s ships. Tomorrow’s ships are another story.”
The Port of Brisbane is proposing a Channel Enhancement Project to make part of its channel deeper, wider and straighter for larger vessels.
The largest ships currently calling at the port under favourable tidal conditions can carry up to 9000 containers and have a typical maximum draft of about 14 metres. Future vessels are expected to carry 14,000 to 15,000 containers.
“We need to be ready for that,” Mr Stephens said.
Moving freight to and from the port will present an equally significant challenge in the absence of a dedicated rail connection.
The port currently handles about 4.5 million to five million truck movements each year. That figure is projected to rise to about 14 million annually by 2060.
“The impact on the roads owned by the various levels of government and private road operators will be huge, not to mention congestion impacts on the community,” Mr Stephens said.
“At the moment the road network is so good to the Port that there isn’t enough focus on how we can improve rail to the port. But that will have to come in the near future. A container on rail is 16 times kinder to the environment than if it goes on a truck.”
Welcoming the first vessel to call at the Brisbane International Cruise Terminal on
2 June 2022, P&O’s Pacific Explorer. Image: Supplied
The opening of the Brisbane International Cruise Terminal has been one of the major achievements during Mr Stephens’ tenure, following an initial disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The terminal now handles about 150 cruise ship visits each year. Mr Stephens described the facility as having the potential to reshape Brisbane’s tourism and events infrastructure.
He also suggested it could provide short-term accommodation during the 2032 Brisbane Olympic and Paralympic Games, following a model used in Barcelona in 1992.
“Rather than building thousands of permanent hotel rooms that may not be needed after 2032, cruise ships could provide temporary accommodation,” Mr Stephens said.
“Six cruise ships could provide about 18,000 five-star ensuite rooms.”
Mr Stephens said the port’s workforce took pride in the work it was doing and in the role the facility played in Queensland’s economy.
“We have an absolute inbuilt pride in working for the Port of Brisbane,” he said.
“I see a culture here where employees continuously improve outcomes for us and our customers simply because they care about the Port. But for the most part, they’re also quite humble – doing really innovative stuff and just considering it ‘business as usual’.
“During our 50th anniversary it is nice to be able to acknowledge some of their remarkable achievements.”
For the Port of Brisbane, the anniversary is therefore not only a marker of what has been built at Fisherman Islands. It is also a reminder that the next phase of port development will be judged by how effectively today’s decisions serve the users, communities and supply chains that come after.