SPECTACULAR financial crashes seemed to be a regular fixture of corporate Australia during the tail-end of the high-flying and fast-living 1980s.
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Entrepreneurs Alan Bond, Christopher Skase, Geoffrey Edelsten and John Elliott all rose to national prominence through their lavish lifestyles and their brazen ability to wield political power.
Their respective downfalls were the stuff of tabloid fodder; their mammoth debts either forcing them behind bars or skipping the country to exotic locales, enraging the public in the process.
However, author and woolgrower Charles Massy believes the exploits of corporate tycoons such as Bond and Skase pale in comparison to the machiavellian exploits in Canberra and beyond that led to the 1991 wool crash.
He has documented the steady rise of the wool industry in his new book Breaking the Sheep's Back, a rollicking tale of political intrigue starting from humble colonial times, through the lucrative boom period of the 1950s and '60s to the cataclysmic events of the early 1990s.
Stockbrokers may feel a collective shiver up their spine when recalling the events of October 19, 1987, also known as "Black Monday", when markets around the world went into free-fall.
Likewise, Australian farmers have similar emotions stirred when looking back on February 11, 1991 ? the federal government lifted the wool reserve price, the day "the floor fell through ". The two events were interlinked, although few could see the connection at the time.
The reserve price scheme was introduced by the federal government in 1974 after many years of advocacy from the Country Party, in a bid to stabilise the flagging industry. Tonnes of wool was stored and subsequently released on to the market in an attempt to reduce price fluctuations.
Massy believed the wool reserve price was innately doomed to fail, a scheme generated for political rather than economic reasons.
He told The Standard the financial fallout from the protectionist scheme cost the federal government billions of dollars and claimed a Royal Commission should have been set up to examine how the impost came to pass.
"When I calculated the costs to the taxpayers and woolgrowers from what occurred in the weeks and months following February 1991, I was astounded," Massy said. "My figures show that the accumulative cost was $12 billion to farmers and the wider public at the time, which roughly equates to $20 billion in today's money.
"The wool price crash was the biggest business implosion in modern Australian history. Bigger than (insurance firm) HIH, bigger than Qintex (Skase's corporation), bigger than Alan Bond's fall from grace."
Massy said the growing wool stockpile, shifting political issues abroad and the federal government's reluctance to lower the reserve price gradually all culminated in the disastrous events of February 1991.
China and the Soviet Union were major buyers of Australian wool during the 1980s. Both countries began to experience civil turmoil by the end of the decade, causing international demand to evaporate and the national stockpile to burst at the seams.
Meanwhile, the political implications of removing the wool floor price proved difficult for those at the top. Wool played a role in former prime minister Bob Hawke's decision to pull out of the infamous "Kirribilli agreement", infamously arranged in 1988 between the ALP leader and Paul Keating in order to hand over the keys to The Lodge.
Mr Keating was interviewed by Massy in Breaking the Sheep's Back. The former treasurer claimed the floor price was used as a bargaining chip by Hawke to keep then agriculture minister John Kerin onside in the event of a leadership challenge.
"There were already several ominous signs in 1989 that the wool industry was under pressure," Massy said.
"Russia and China represented one third of Australian wool sales and both markets were effectively wiped out in a short period of time.
"Meanwhile, back home, Paul Keating claims Hawke reneged on the Kirribilli agreement within months of the pact being made.
"The way Hawke managed that was to get (communications minister) Kim Beazley onside by promising not to deregulate that sector and he also secured John Kerin's support by making a similar offer regarding the wool floor price.
"In the end, the agreement had to be broken because the reserve price couldn't be sustained."
The reserve price scheme also had consequences for the Coalition. Then opposition leader John Hewson visited Hamilton during the height of debate over continuing the floor price.
A heated meeting in Hamilton's town hall was divided down the middle between those who supported the protectionist system and farmers with free market leanings. Mr Hewson was met with a frosty reception when he told an audience of more than 2000 farmers that it was "time we put our hands up before we put our hands out ".
Nareeb grazier Hugh Beggs was newly-installed as chairman of the Australian Wool Corporation at the time of the reserve price suspension.
He said the wool industry was hard hit by international events including the Gulf War and evaporating markets in the communist world.
"All number of factors coincided between 1989 and 1991 which placed great pressure of the industry," Mr Beggs said. "Russia consumed nearly a third of all Australian wool exported and when the Soviet government began to collapse, it was like someone had turned the tap off.
"The Gulf War started and markets across the globe stopped spending.
"The reserve price could not function and that is why it was wiped."
Massy said many woolgrowers pulled out of the industry during the 1990s, leaving much of rural Australia decimated by the wool crash. He said the fallout from the events of 1991 had taken nearly two decades to heal, with the industry only just starting to get back on its feet.
The popularity of sheep meat in several international markets has left Mr Beggs optimistic about how wool fits into an ever-changing textile marketplace. "We'll never have a stand-alone wool industry again . Those days are over," the Nareeb grazier said.
"What we are now seeing is the transformation of that sector into a stand-alone sheep industry.
"It's easy to be an optimist but there is evidence that the transformation is happening right now."