ABSTRACT
The privatisation of government business enterprises and the identification of elements of parts of industries as being monopoly providers meant that during the 1990s there developed in Australia a concern that price regulation of these utilities be implemented in a way that enhanced efficiency. Price regulation in Australia was by no means new, it having been used in a range of industries ever since the First World War (Butlin et al. 1982). Price regulation of utilities such as electricity, gas, telecommunications and rail however had, generally speaking, not been used before the 1990s because these had been under government ownership and therefore pricing was determined as part of the political process.
