The last remaining shack on the Bend was demolished in 1970, as Webb Dock expanded; the Life Saving Victoria headquarters stand on the site today.

Fishermans Bend is a primarily industrial centre at the foot of the West Gate Bridge and contains major establishments for the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Holden, Hawker de Havilland, the Cooperative Research Centre for Advanced Composite Structures, Kraft Foods, Specsavers, Toyota Australia, and port security.

In 2012, then-Planning Minister Matthew Guy under the State Government of Ted Baillieu made a surprise decision to rezone 250 hectares of Fishermans Bend from urban industrial land to mixed use, placing the area as part of Melbourne's Capital City Zone.

[6] This move was highly controversial, as it led to a large increase in property prices for current land-owners before the provision of any public services or infrastructure.

[13] The report argued:The rezoning mistakenly assumed that the development of an urban renewal area could be managed by the exercise of the same controls and processes as the rest of the Capital City Zone which applies to the ‘Hoddle Grid’ and Southbank where there is a strong Municipal Strategic Statement, existing statutory design and development planning overlay controls, and where public transport, roads, open space, heritage overlays and building form are all in place.

[13]In 2015 the State Government paid $30 million for a small industrial site on Buckhurst Street in Fishermans Bend to create a public park, five times its value eight years prior.

[16][17] In 2017 the University of Melbourne announced it was building an advanced manufacturing, engineering and design campus in the Fishermans Bend Employment Precinct.

[20] The 2019-2020 state budget allocated $4.5 million to plan the tram routes to Fishermans Bend and develop a preliminary business case for the project.