Our Wheat Board didn't have a guarantee. The really profound farmers who can remember the 1920s—that generation, rather than the generation of zero-tillage type farmers—were very much against losing the single-desk wheat marketing.
The AWB actually created another desk. There were two sides to AWB, Mr. Chairman. There was the pool, which is the farmers' wheat, then there was a trading arm through Geneva. Well, it was turning out that the trading arm through Geneva was doing more trading, buying wheat from the pool and taking the profit and putting it in the shareholders, because it became a public company. We thought that was unsustainable.
The market is now deregulated. We have something like seven companies that have export licences in a pretty tough economic circumstance. One of the things that the Wheat Board discovered once we took away the single desk is that to get bank guarantees without the government guarantee, it was very difficult to handle the total crop. They were probably pleased to be relieved of the responsibility.
I think it's a great hurdle to jump. It was a very passionate debate. There were farmers holding up placards and yelling, etc. The new-age farmer who goes on the computer every day.... Some of our farmers got too new age and got stuck with currency positions and forward sales, and I have to say that the Wheat Board itself lost $230 million in one trade on the futures.