Australian governments engaged in a major reform program in the 1990s, culminating in the formation of the National Electricity Market (NEM) which commenced operation on 13 December 1998. Today, the NEM supplies electricity to 7.7 million Australian customers on an interconnected national grid that runs through Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and South Australia. In this paper Stewart Smith reviews the electricity market from a national perspective, and then focuses on the requirements of NSW.