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Twenty years ago the Greiner Government established the first independent economic price regulator in Australia. Perhaps the boldness of that step is not fully appreciated. We were established prior to the Hilmer report and its recommendations for the establishment of independent price regulation. Importantly, our focus was on the regulation of prices of government businesses. The US had a long history of regulation of privately-owned utilities. Chile and the UK separately established the independent utility regulatory bodies as part of the
process of privatising their utilities. In these cases, taking Ministers out of price setting was considered necessary to establish investor confidence.