© Commonwealth of Australia 1998

The main objectives of the study are to provide information on: factors within the influence of government that are unnecessarily impeding the competitiveness of the industry; factors that affect decisions to invest in Australia or abroad; firms’ assessments of the impact and adequacy of the pace of a selection of microeconomic reforms; and firms’ assessments of priority areas for future reform. [...] 3 MICRO REFORM — IMPACTS ON FIRMS: ALUMINIUM CASE STUDY For these reasons, combined with the fact that all the firms in the industry were willing to participate in the study and the AAC was willing to endorse the study, the aluminium industry was selected as the third case study. [...] The Commission is grateful for the help and co-operation received from the AAC and individual firms within the industry during the course of the study. [...] The oil price shocks of the 1970s provided a significant impetus to the spread of the industry beyond the major consuming markets of the United States, Europe and Japan. [...] In the process, the oxygen in the alumina combines with the carbon to form carbon dioxide at the top of the pots, while molten aluminium forms at the bottom.