It happened at Albury about 15 years ago. I do understand the investment process and the attitudes of shareholders regarding investment. Again, the m essage for government is to speed up the micro-economic reform if we want investment, and we do need investment for economic growth. In order to illustrate the links between investment and micro-economic reform, let me indulge a little by telling honourable senators of one experience I was involved in. Having built a new world competitive newsprint mill at Albury, which started up in 1981, I found that the New South Wales government of the day doubled the price of electricity in the following 12 months.
Electricity is the largest cost input in the process of making that grade of paper.
It forced the plant into substantial losses for many years. If there had been a free market for electricity, as is currently proposed by the National Grid Council, it is very likely that the plant would have been able to negotiate alternative supplies of electricity at cheaper rates. Ironically, after this sobering experience as a major electricity customer, I later became chairman of the Tasmanian Electricity Utility where I am proud to say the management team has, in recent years, changed the direction of the organisation and improved efficiency very substantially, basically in preparation for the eventual competitive market. Such changes are difficult and very time consuming but they can be done. I should explain that about half of that change resulted from stopping further hydro capacity expansions and the other half from efficiency changes.