Sometimes it's a bit hard to remember, but at the moment your columnist is in no doubt about the book presently on the go. For some holiday reading, we have been lent a copy of Charles Massy's book on the 'decline and fall of the Australian wool industry,' Breaking the Sheep's Back. In it Massy documents the manner in which the 'minimum reserve price,' scheme was mishandled, and how it brought a once proud industry, on which many people in the country still depend, to its knees.

The reserve was originally intended to inject some stability into the industry by providing a 'floor' in the market.

It seemed a great idea, and the possible saviour of struggling woolgrowers. But then, a few people, including a slew of agri-politicians, saw it as a means of getting the buyers to pay more and make everybody on the land rich. Your columnist can recall local people here saying how they thought that the reserve should go higher.

I wonder whether they would admit that now?

Well, of course, as they say, the rest is history.

And Massy meticulously relates the sad tale of the great bust.

Wool buyers weren't going to be dictated to and pay inflated prices.

They stopped buying. As a result, the Australian Wool Corporation, which had been trumpeting its great successes, found itself buying in as much as 80 per cent of the clip, and feeding a rapidly growing stockpile of wool, much of it of inferior quality.

Eventually, the whole thing came to a head, and the government had to step in. Meanwhile, many fibre manufacturers were focussing their attention on synthetics.

The bubble had burst. The stewardship of the wool hierarchy, with their lavish overseas trips and elaborate lunches at woolgrowers' expense, had been revealed as a charade.

It's very sad, and we all paid, in one way or another, for those mistakes.