This article describes the Commonwealth Government's rural policy activities over 1987. In that year, policy was shaped by three interrelated factors: the uneven but marked recovery of commodity prices and the associated diminution of the urgency and political intensity of the "rural crisis";...

1988 and 1989 saw a strong continuation of the 1987 rural recovery. Australia's emphasis on international agricultural trade reform also dominated domestic policy, which was concerned with complementary microeconomic efficiency reforms. The most significant developments in this vein were the...