All commissioner appointments should be for only one term of six or seven years, removing the potential for reappointment to be a source of pressure on independence.
Individual ports were run by Boards of Harbour Commissioners, appointments to which were often politically influenced.
The new commissioner's appointment is effective at 12 01 a.m. tomorrow, and he will be sworn in sometime in the next 10 days as the department's 40th commissioner in just under 100 years.
Laws said Gove should follow cabinet guidelines and allow Sir David Normington, the public appointments commissioner, to appoint the panel chair.
All these appointments have been carried out through an emergency process, meaning they do not have to abide by the code of practice for public appointments, although the Commissioner for Public Appointments has been consulted.
In reaction to news of Barroso's move, the European ombudsman called on Tuesday for the EU to tighten rules on commissioners taking appointments on leaving office.
A spokesman for attorney general, George Brandis, told Guardian Australia that despite the call for expressions of interest no decision had been made "regarding the division of roles between commissioners", whose appointments are expected to start in July 2016.
Would see the chairman/woman and members of the panel selected by an appointments committee chaired by a retired Supreme Court judge, and include one representative of the industry's interests, one member representing the public interest, and one public appointments assessor nominated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments for England and Wales.
The process will be open, transparent and conducted in accordance with the commissioner for public appointment's code of practice".
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly's appointment of three former federal prosecutors to evaluate the integrity of the Police Department's internal system for recording crime data has posed the panel with a weighty task.
