Rural policy-making came under increasing pressure during 1990 and 1991 as a rural downturn rivalling the 1982-83 drought eroded farm incomes. International trade reform was stalled, the government procrastinated during the wool crisis and continued to be tardy in delivering the benefits of microeconomic reform to the agricultural sector. Also the liberal/National Coalition parties finally rallied to provide a coherent and credible alternative government All these developments, plus a series of policy reverses, portended that this was probably Labor's final "rural crisis".