5 FEBRUARY 1991: ANSWCU96: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO JOHN HUTTON
I will ask you first Mr Hutton where were you born and when?
JH: Waverley, Almira Hospital in June 1931.
Did you grow up round there.
JH: Most of my earlier childhood days were in the Vaucluse, Dover Heights, Waverley, Coogee, Clovelly area. From there I went to the Rose Bay Primary School. I didn’t leave the Dover Heights area until I was married in 1955. So that is my early days.
What did your father do?
JH: My father was a motor engineer, that was his trade, motor mechanic today they call them but he was actually a motor engineer, he preferred it that way.
Were you and he close at all?
JH: Well the War interrupted, I think, our closeness, although he was exempt from military service because he was in a protected job. In those days they had the Department of Manpower and he was an inspector of aircraft parts. He decided that he still wanted to be in it, so despite all of that he joined up in the navy and went into the navy. I believe that sort of interrupted a lot, because it rested then with my sister and myself just with my mother during those War years. After that it was high school and the general out of the house situation. I don’t know as to how close we were.
Did he influence you in any way do you think?
JH: I think he was a very, very sober, tolerant person. Certainly in that era, the big thing about that era was that as far as I saw it was that persuasion rather than anything else to try and get you to do the right thing, to see you doing things. He certainly helped in my second job, with the Electricity Commission, he found that job in the newspaper and brought it to my attention. He was a very sober and conservative sort of person and I think there was an influence in general conduct that he gave me.
What about your mother, what do you think you got from her?
JH: Oh well as a kid during the War I learnt how to wash the floors and things like that. I think both parents influenced me to be a more round the house, round the home type of person rather than getting out. I used to play cricket and get out with the cricket team and things like this, but I think they sort of bred a homeliness, I suppose, into me. To help with the housework, to help with the garden and do those sorts of things.
Did you like school or did you dislike it?
JH: I guess that I, wrongly, tolerated it instead of seeing my opportunities and going for the best I could get out of school. As a group we would get down to Bondi Beach and we would spend our time down at Bondi Beach. In those days I didn’t know any terribly studious types. I would have liked to have gone further and certainly I have realised this in later years, after high school. I went back to the Sydney Tech College to do my Land and Engineering Draughtsman’s Certificate. I realised then there was a lot more in life and like yourself I started to become a bit more interested in history, but I never ever studied it as a subject.
What subjects did you like or dislike at school then?
JH: More of the sciences, the mathematics, the drawing.
You liked?
JH: Yes, I would say that. Of course discounting the sports area of things, as far as classroom activities go. I didn’t mind one of those things that we had there at Sydney Tech High was the drama and I forget what the subject was called by it was in connection with English anyway. It was actually playing parts and things.
When you left school what did you do first?
JH: Well the first thing after leaving school was naturally enough to try and get a job, which I succeeded with in joining the Department of Main Roads. That was virtually sort of subject to attending a tech course, the Sydney Technical College for the Land and Engineering Survey Draughtsman’s Certificate. I finished up with a credit pass in that and that went from about 1950 to 1953. I came out with that and became a survey draughtsman at DMR, after which time in 1954 I left the DMR and went to the Electricity Commission. I was there until 1988.
Survey draughting, did you pick that or did it pick you?
JH: Well in those old days, back at school, we had the tests to see what we were most suited for. Draughting, architecture and subjects associated like that were the kind of thing they suggested I should pursue. I went looking for draughting. I suppose in those days they used to have drawings of war planes and things like that. Indelibly I left my imprint on one of our dining room tables in tracing off the war plane with all of its ribs and everything else. I liked draughting. I don’t know why I went into survey, it was a thing to do I suppose. It was also associated with engineering and I don’t know maybe it was kind of an unconscious attempt at doing things which I was going to be involved with building. Of course the survey work is preparation for engineers and architects to come along later on to design their buildings and structures on that information.
During the War you were at school at course. How were you affected by the War do you think?
JH: Well one thing was that I was in the Air League. In those days we had Air Leagues going on and down at Rose Bay Primary School we got involved with the Air League. I finished up being the Company Squadron Leader, or Acting Company Squadron Leader I think. I moved away from it and went into high school by the end of that period of time and I don’t know whether it virtually ceased to exist at that stage for a period of time. It certainly did pick up again at a later stage. But the Air League was the kind of thing that I got involved with, that was a voluntary sort of thing. The kind of things that I saw how the War affected us, being kids, of course we tried to build an air raid shelter in the backyard, we had a tennis court in the backyard and it wasn’t developed as a tennis court. A neighbour’s son and I used to play cricket in the backyard and we tried to build this air raid shelter in there. The shells going across from the submarines that were trying to shell Rose Bay Air Base, those sorts of things went on. They didn’t wake us up but we went down to have a look at damage on the flats and things that was incurred. We really didn’t see the effects of war very much in those days I don’t think.
So when you got your first job at the DMR exactly what did you do?
JH: Well in those days, and that is 1950, being the junior draughtsman in the place I was expected to do all kinds of things. A runner, a fetcher, go and do this, go and do that sort of thing. At the same time I was attending the Tech College of a night time going through the course there. At the DMR you had to go chase files, records, plans. You had to do the stationery, stores and things. People would give you a list of things that they wanted for their personal use. That required me to do many sorts of things including the rationing out. People would ask for three pencils and the total stock had probably been cut down by two-thirds or one-third, so I had to cut down every body else’s requests down to that. I saw a thing there which upset me a bit and I suppose it gave me an insight into tolerance and trying to understand the person. A fellow came back from the War and I believe he was said to be a square peg in a round hole. Before the War he was a bookbinder and under the Rehabilitation Act they came back and they were placed into jobs where they were given some training and so forth. He went from a bookbinder into a draughting, survey draughting, position. He tried very hard in his life that fellow. He tried to get extra work but I am afraid that he was always a bookbinder. Regretfully he never got on to probably those technical aspects of draughting and construction work. I unfortunately was one of those persons who had to cut back his requests for stores, he always wanted to have a full complement of stock and stores in his possession. I always feel that I contributed to his death, because he finished up committing suicide. It is one of those things that you just wonder what part you’d played in him coming to do that sort of thing. That was a sad thing. But I suppose life went on, even though he left a family. I was never close to him and I don’t know how his family survived from that time, but I suppose they picked up from where things stopped for a stage. For them life went on, I hope.
What made you go to the Electricity Commission?
JH: Well my father saw this position and he said, ‘It is a new Authority starting up. There are chances of improving yourself there. Chances of getting into the ground floor of an Authority.’ He saw probably the future of this. He came from Tasmania and whether he or not he saw the introduction and the start of the hydro-electric system down in Tasmania which may have tumbled him to think about this. Apart from the fact that he explained it was the ground floor and starting off at the beginning of things, I never sort of really questioned him very much. I was probably too intent at that particular time on being engaged and getting ready to get married. It was quite a significant increase in salary from where I was at the DMR, which was an old department established in the early 1920s and it was continually having problems about funding. Whereas the Electricity Commission was starting anew. It had a big project of getting us out of the power blackouts in those days. So I think my most immediate thoughts in those days was to get the job, which I applied for and I got the job. Things went rosy because from there, the interview, and subsequently the job, marriage and finishing up on the top of the grade with the Electricity Commission.
When did you first hear about credit unions?
JH: Well in 1958, that was when I first heard about them. I was a babe in the woods as far as community and social things that went on, or society improvement things that went on. At the Commission there were some people, particularly one person Harry Head. Harry Head used to work at the Registry and from the Registry he came to the Electricity Commission as a clerk and he brought that experience back into the Electricity Commission. Whilst I was on leave at one period there they had a meeting over at the Pyrmont Power Station, the social club I think it was over there. They had a meeting and a number of interested people, I think that there were thirteen people, started off the meeting. They were the first thirteen members of the credit union. I was number fifteen. They formed this credit union in August 1958.
You weren’t there at that time?
JH: I was on holidays.
Who was present at the formation meeting, can you remember? Did you hear? Who represented it for the League?
JH: There was no such thing. I am not quite sure when the League started now.
What about the Registry, did somebody represent the Registry?
JH: No they just held a formation meeting at the canteen. Subsequently they applied for registration. I am not quite sure whether the meeting was in August or the registration was in August, but August was the significant month in 1958. Other than Harry Head we also had Maurie Banbury, he was a draughtsman along with myself. In fact as Jack Coyne will indicate to you, there were other people who were draughtsmen, like Bill Howe. We seemed to be trying to get out of draughting into more clerical administrative work, I don’t know but we seemed to pop up in these sorts of places.
Well Jack is still draughting.
JH: Is he draughting or is he supervising.
He is responsible for the lighting system, as well as being Chairman of Sydney Credit Union.
JH: There are a few stories that go around about Jack. He used to work down at the Lands Department before Sydney City Council.
What do you mean a few stories?
JH: Known to be throwing things around the room and it went straight through window. I am not sure whether it was a meat pie or what it was, but it went straight out through the window. In the old Lands Department building, a wonderful old building down there, they had very big windows. Of course in those days you never had any other air-conditioning other than opening the window. He and Keith Carruthers, who was the draughtsman at the Lands Department in those days, they were involved in some antics or something or other and out this thing goes through the window. Jack has had his frivolous times.
You were not involved with the Lands Department itself?
JH: Not so far as credit union activities, but I was involved with the Lands Department because Lands Department is for the alienation of lands and developing the State into holdings and things like that. We had to go down there and search and find the old plans and records. So it was purely on a professional basis.
Did you meet Jack Coyne there?
JH: I never met Jack Coyne until I was involved with the credit union activities.
So when the credit union was founded, when you came back you were number fifteen. When were you roped in as a Director?
JH: Well what they did, they elected a President, Secretary and Treasurer from that group of thirteen quickly. Because the Secretary, Maurie Banbury was previously associated with the Lidcombe Catholic Church, I am not quite sure now but it was an Antigonish credit union. That is another term which you have probably come across in the history of things, the Antigonish movement. He was involved with that credit union. He felt that they were rather conservative, backward and also specialising in one group of people too much and he was happy to get into an industrial employer-employee sort of business like this. Well he was the Secretary and the whole credit union started with a volunteer movement. He was the Secretary so at lunch time we used to look for volunteers, in those days it was all done by hand membership cards and things like that, to fill in the payments. We still had cash payments if you were paying a loan. Representatives were going around collecting money. In those days the Electricity Commission was restricted, in fact, by management of the Commission to the city area. It was only later that we developed and spread our wings out to the country areas. That was probably after pay-roll deductions. In those days, just about the whole of the Survey Branch was doing these things at lunch time, writing in how much payments were made. I got involved on the first change at our Annual Meeting. The first Treasurer, John Curson, he set up the books and, I never having done any accounting or anything else, he had formulae to work the interest accrued, how much interest was projected to be earned for the year. I was involved in the stocktaking. In those days we used to stock take our cards and put values to them and so forth like that. I became the second Treasurer and from there I went through to the Secretary and finally became Chairman for a number of years. I was the Secretary for a number of years until virtually I was given the nod by management that I wasn’t producing enough for the Commission and things had to improve themselves if I expected to improve myself. So with that bit of a nod I stepped out from the Secretary position for a couple of years and then later came back in. I came back in when Ray Cooper, probably, was involved with the credit union and that would have been about 1963 then. Well I was in the credit union from thereon, until 1988.
Did you know Ray Cooper at work, did you?
JH: Yes but I only become involved with Ray Cooper when he sought me. In fact he sought Laurie Small, he was another one of the Formation Directors. He and I were approached by Ray Cooper to sort of interest ourselves into getting on to the Board again. In those early days, those were the days when I think that the League was starting to have some of its personality problems. Maybe they wanted some people who could see the benefits of what the League could give to the total movement, not only in New South Wales but to Australia as well.
You say you thought the League had started to get personality problems, what do you mean exactly, at that stage?
JH: Well the League started to look into getting things like in those early days it was called a Savings Guarantee Fund, you must have heard a lot about that. Its own building business, some of the banking services. Those sorts of things that we needed to put ourselves on a comparable basis to the other financial institutions in the State. Certainly we were very much one of those groups that thought a lot of its members and looked for member and client services, you might say. It was what they call today, a client-oriented sort of thing. I think that the Credit Union League, particularly the credit unions, were very much a personal sort of basis. You have only got to look at the people who virtually wear the thing on their sleeve, like Jack Coyne. He is a heart man through and through. It really gets them and I think that I am probably one of those people too. I feel sincerely rather than just purely and simply a business enterprise, we feel that these sorts of things can do something for people. I have seen it happen. There were other people who felt this was not the way to go, there were other ways in which to kill the cat sort of thing and gain the crown of supremacy over the banking institutions or the hire purchase companies. The hire purchase companies in those days were certainly the villains with the interest rates and the kinds of terms that they were charging to the ordinary man in the street. Our credit union started off basically to get a lot of people out of a lot of trouble. Virtually they had debt collectors and a penny in the pound business, high interest rates, users of other people, on the pay lines picking their money out after making a loan. We felt that sort of thing had to stop, a person should only have to pay a reasonable amount of interest sufficiently to support whatever you were going to be doing. Other people saw it as a money making enterprise. Maybe we have come the full cycle, I don’t know, but we have now got to a situation where I believe, and this is my personal opinion, that the credit union, the movement, in total Australia it needs some sort of move away from this factional business of States. Even individual credit unions become factionalised and unfortunately the person who suffers from all of this is collectively is the people. All of this in-fighting that is caused has cost a lot of money, it has created a situation to fight these skirmishes that have been going on people have had to raise money within the credit union to go out and do things. Now if that money could have been used for a more productive purpose it would have been far better for the member to have got either cheaper loans or more services at an early stage. However, as I said before with Jack Coyne, and I am not isolating Jack Coyne of course, but Stan Arneil looking at another aspect of things is one of those too personality types who felt certain things certain ways. I believe that they feel the best way of doing is the way in which it should be done, their way.
When did you first meet Stan Arneil?
JH: We started off with a lot of help from the CSR.
Where your first met Keith Young?
JH: Yes Keith Young was one. I must thank the CSR for their generosity. In fact I think that they started off even with some stationery and some introduction into what you have got to do and so forth. It is quite possibly that Harry Head and Maurie Banbury, who both had previous credit union experience, may have known Keith. I found him very obliging. Stan Arneil was involved with things. My first association with Stan Arneil would have been through the Newport Schools, if not CUNA Mutual. I am not quite sure whether he came as a paid employee or just a friendly ally to the CUNA insurance, but he was certainly involved in the Newport Schools. All of those things were very stimulating.
You didn’t have anything to do with him when he was working at the Registrar’s as a Development Officer?
JH: No. I am not quite sure what years they were.
Well that would be 1964, 1965 I think.
JH: I wouldn’t say so.
He took the job in 1965 I think with CUNA Mutual-CUMIS.
JH: I always thought he was in the insurance business, not in the Registry Office.
First he was President of the League. Then after that he was Development Officer for the Registrar’s Office. That is the time there was a bit of an argument as to whether he should still be President as well as working for the Registry. Don Harvey stood against him. Did you know anything about that?
JH: I would have been there. I definitely would have been there if it was the mid-1960s. Unfortunately our credit union Directors didn’t have much free time at weekends to attend these Annual Meetings. It was quite often left to a couple of us to go along if we wanted to and it was rather a loose sort of fitting thing. But they were quite happy to service the credit union members within our credit union within their work area, but as far as taking it into weekends and after hours they drew a line, probably still draw lines at doing that sort of thing.
You went to Newport Schools then?
JH: I went to Newport Schools. I found those stimulating, especially Father Ganey. He is a very stimulating person, he is probably dead now is he? He was a person who could motivate people, certainly with his spiritual anecdotes where you also got involved in going across and making a donation to the establishment of the Bergengren Schools over in Fiji. Again he was there with Joane Naisara. Those sorts of people we could actually see there the benefits that were being achieved by their activities and their motivation. The problem was of course was to bring that back and let other people see it here so we could further stimulate them to seeing the advisability of being involved.
Did you meet Dermot Ryan at all at that stage?
JH: Oh yes. Dermot Ryan I think was also involved with Maurie Banbury at the Lidcombe Catholic Credit Union. Of course we were in the Sydney Chapter and you would have contact. Dermot was Sydney City Council wasn’t he. In those days purely as a Director in the Sydney Chapter area, which we attended, got involved with him there. Dermot also was a person who was a leader, a person who was guiding and moving on up through the hierarchy to broader issues.
End Tape 1A: 4171 Words: 1 hour 30 minutes.
You mentioned the City of Sydney Chapter, when did you first become involved with that?
JH: Well I am a bit hazy on dates, but they were trying to get some sort of involvement by the credit unions.
Sydney City Council Employees Credit Union, was that going at the time?
JH: Oh yes.
So it was after the mid-1960s then?
JH: We were attending in the old Social and Recreation Club rooms of the Sydney County Council. Now I am fairly certain that Sydney City Council was certainly there in those days. Why these sorts of things become established I suppose you have learnt that by now by speaking to other people. But I felt that in those early days whilst we were sort of supported by other credit unions to some degree it was one of those sorts of things in an industrial credit union where we went in to work, where we stayed back at work to do things involved with the credit union, but after at the weekends and virtually after tea of a night time you weren’t in a community atmosphere and therefore your involvement ceased. It tended to cease so you actually had to make that commitment to stay back after work, get involved after hours. I think this is one of the problems that industrial credit unions have today, that they are not really associated with the community. I believe that there were too many of these industrials started up and they were reliant very much on the industrial workforce. As you mentioned, with people being redundant, organisations closing down and probably one of the best examples of this I saw was in the Stabilisation Fund when the Bridge Motor Corporation closed down its workshop and its credit union was very quickly stabilised by the voluntary efforts of a number of credit unions, including ours, who gave some of their employees time and efforts personally on the spot to help things. Quite often when organisations close down it doesn’t necessarily mean that they move from their place of residence. I have always believed in the community-type of arrangement. Ideally you should have an industrial community arrangement where your industry is where you live, but that doesn’t work here in Sydney anyway.
Well it does with some, the Sydney Credit Union for a start.
JH: Yes, but a lot of their staff may come from the immediate Sydney area, I don’t know, but what I was getting at that in the Electricity Commission anyway we were spread over the whole State. We had Broken Hill and then from the north to the south of the State. It made it very difficult up in snow country and things like this, they were virtually remote areas. We had to get representatives on site so we had a number of representatives who might only have about five to ten members in some places. Of course pay-roll deductions started I would say in the early 1960s, round about 1960, when one of our members, Jack Armstrong, who had an in with the Labor Party was actually able to influence the Minister and other members and representatives in his area to give the Commission pay-roll deductions. I think we were one of the early ones who got pay-roll deductions. Once that started we were able to spread through the whole of the Commission and then get out into the country areas. But promoting the credit union and getting a cohesive group of people over the whole State is very difficult, the Teachers’ is a classic example. The kinds of services that they have got are quite credible to the credit union Ken Miller in particular, he got to experience it overseas. What they were able to do for their members, being isolated in schools you might say and having very little contact other than in groups within the schools, he did a wonderful job with the telephone connections and things like that, he was able to get to those people using that technology. Our credit union started and I felt that it just didn’t get that cohesion it needed and draw in people and get them active.
Did you manage to get them all in before you had to have a Manager or Liaison Officer?
JH: We had a very high number. It wasn’t until about 1963 that we actually had a full-time Manager and that was Harry Head. Harry Head dropped out as the President of the credit union after founding it and after getting established. Harry dropped out but he came back in around about 1963 as its first Manager. We were using, on arrangement with another Branch in the Commission, a machine operator to machine records of things other than just the manual records. Once he was established as Manager we then started to build up a staff of about something like two or three in the beginning and then it rose, I noticed in the magazine over here, an extra forty-nine. We have got branches and employees now in the central coast and the south coast and out as far west as Wallerawang Power Station so it has certainly grown in that way. One thing was noticeable. One credit union started, as I said, in the city area and it then moved out into other areas and Wallerawang and Whangee Power Station, they were two, and Tarrawanna, they were three perimeter areas of the outer metropolitan area you might say. They had credit unions established when we went out in those areas and actually they came and amalgamated with us.
What about the other credit union that is still operating, Elcom?
JH: Elcom is our mines. The other credit union was what they called The Lakes. Now The Lakes wanted to stand alone. I think that the Newcastle and the north coast area, I don’t want to be a person who says that they are no good, but they want to do their own things. One of the comments that was made to me once was, ‘Sydney credit unions can’t come up here and tell us what to do in Newcastle.’ Now unfortunately that is not what the intention was, we were trying to get together. That seemed to prevail into the credit union in The Lakes. Well The Lakes then had to finish up amalgamating with Elcom. Now Elcom is a mining company, it is owned by the Electricity Commission. However it was a stand-alone thing and the Electricity Commission didn’t want to have anything to do with sponsoring or even according the fact that they had a credit union in Elcom. They didn’t want, from I suppose a political point of view within the Commission, the people in Elcom to say, ‘But you have given this to your credit unions in the Electricity Commission, why can’t we have this in Elcom?’ Elcom was a private company and they employed miners. The Electricity Commission was an Authority that owned Elcom but they were in electricity generation and what they gave to their staff was irrespective of whatever Elcom gave to their staff. So the pity about it all was that we couldn’t have established and got closer together. What I was going to say before was that those three credit unions around in those power station complexes, except The Lakes, they had their membership. They brought their membership in with them, they had contact with their membership and it was a problem with us in later years that, virtually one of the conditions was because of the Act in those days delegation of authority, we had to take two of their Directors into our credit union. If we were going to decentralise the Authority and the approval of loans a Committee had to do this, delegated by the Board and you couldn’t have a Committee of one, you had to have a Committee of two. So that is why we had to take two Directors in. It caused a lot of trouble and it is probably still causing trouble, it is still causing trouble in there because it is very difficult. They still see that there is some sort of plot there to cut them out of management of the credit union, when it is purely and simply a practical problem. Whenever we had a Board meeting they had to come down from Wallerawang or Lithgow, they had to come down from the central coast, they had to come up from Tarrawanna, Wollongong so it just wasn’t practical in lots of ways to call Board meetings and have them there to whatever was necessary to finish that meeting.
They still are two credit unions aren’t they?
JH: You mean The Lakes in with Elcom? Oh yes.
It is Elcom and Power now they call themselves.
JH: Well Power is the Electricity Commission.
So there is still the two.
JH: Yes there is still the two, but they are sort of servicing two different industrial groups. If I could have my way with things I would try to centralise far more of the credit unions that are operating today. You know it is very nice and comfortable to have that personal contact with people but over in America I understand they had committees, the early days of some of the Antigonish credit unions in New South Wales they used to have what they called their cottage groups, cottage discussions.
Did you ever go to any of those?
JH: No, I was never involved with them. But from my information that was the kind of thing. They used to sit around and talk about the thing, so I believe. I should imagine personalities again came into it where Bob Smith out there and ‘He wants a bloomin’ loan for his car, and the damn things is a wreck,’ sort of thing, and ‘We shouldn’t give it to him because I don’t like him.’ That sort of thing goes on, personalities. It will go on in bigger credit unions, it will go on while there is this personal identity with one person and another. The same thing works in banks. I know my mother didn’t like the bank locally because, ‘That girl in the bank up there knows me and knows my business in the bank.’ There is that sort of attitude with things. So what, I don’t know that it really matters, but if they could get more cohesiveness in the whole State they would be able to turn their attention more to getting a wider basket of goods available to the members at far less cost I think.
Back to the Chapter if you will. When you met, when you were a member of the Chapter, the City of Sydney Chapter, that was at the Sydney County Council Sports and Social Club was it?
JH: That’s right, yes.
Who do you remember at those meetings?
JH: Well you just gave me a few names there. There was Ron Birch who was really a mainstay and the strength within the Sydney Chapter. Of course what happened was it was only the dedicated that were coming to any Chapter meetings. It was only the dedicated ones who were coming along, so no matter whether you went to an Annual Meeting of the League, whether you went to a Chapter meeting, whether you went to a School or any other activities the same faces were there all the time. I would say that Sydney City and Sydney County Council did a lot to try and get more of their Directors involved. They had a very positive attitude with getting their Directors to come along and it was noticeable to see representation. But it was like the devoted sort of thing trying to get the devoted to come along so it was the same people just all the time.
Did you ever go to any of those functions that they used to have? I think it was jointly the Chapter and the City Council Credit Union used to have a function at Adam’s Hotel once a year. The Minister used to attend and a number of the politicians. It was a sort of thank-you.
JH: Well there was also the Electricity, what was it called now, the Electricity Industry Credit Union Association. We were involved with that of course along with the various County Councils in New South Wales. It was a sort of a little off-shoot something like the Institute of Management of Credit Unions things. It was a sort of off-shoot that sprung up from our association within the credit union association. No, I am afraid it would only have been a couple of times if I did. There was in early days certainly some meetings where the Boards of credit unions would meet just purely in a social get-together, get-to-know-you sort of thing. Yes we did those things. John Gormley was involved there too in the SEC. We had meetings. Because we were so close and in the same industry obviously we started to think, ‘Well why have we got two credit unions. Let’s talk and let’s keep the avenue and the communication lines open so that if we need to know we can just see which way we are going.’ This again shows some of the errors made. They buy their buildings, we buy our buildings, they buy their computer system we buy our computer system. You know we are talking about 15,000 members when one of these things with a little bit of enhancement in their programs can take 30,000 with no trouble at all. So we were double dipping, we were double spending on a lot of things and services where we need not have. The idea was to sort of keep these things open. But what prevails in the end is the idea that the individual Directors have a very, very personal contact with that credit union and with that membership and they don’t want to lose that position or place. I believe it is a power ego that they’ve got, a power relationship with those people. They are the people who the members come to for advice, and they love that. I like it myself, but they just couldn’t switch off. They liked to be there, they liked to be recognised as someone, an authority or even just a helpful man, to give that person help along the way. They just don’t want to divorce themselves with their own hand and say, ‘Let’s vote to wind up and go in with somebody else.’
You mentioned earlier that you went to Newport Schools. Was that your only residential School that you went to, Newport?
JH: Yes.
Did you go to Prince Henry?
JH: No. Prince Henry was a thing which came on later on. It is not as if I knew everything, there was a certain politics I had to play within the Electricity Commission’s Board. I didn’t want to incur expenditures which were going to be sort of pinpricked. As you might know, too, the Electricity Commission in 1974, the members through the involvement of some of the Board, had a rule in place which limited the amount of Association fees that our credit union would pay. Well what happened was they enforced that rule at a meeting where the League at the time had increased its membership dues, which virtually meant we resigned from the League. Later on, of course, they had to come back. It was always a case, when you mention here on these questions, that was probably one of my greatest disappointments that our credit union virtually voted themselves out of the League in doing this. But they had quite a big following.
Who was behind it?
JH: Ah well there were a couple of people.
Did they involve other credit unions as well?
JH: Oh I don’t believe so. Maybe they involved other personalities outside of other credit unions. This was when things were raging as far as the Savings Guarantee Fund went, as far as CUNA Mutual Insurances went.
The insurance split generally within the League?
JH: Yes. When the Association started the Association introduced these sorts of things. They were things that were seen as needed in the future. Insurance was one of those things when they saw that they could get a better deal.
Your credit union, when they set a ceiling on the dues that they would pay and they left the League, a lot of other credit unions at that time left the League. Not over the dues so much but over the issue of insurance.
JH: In our particular credit union the dues was only the vehicle of being able to get ourselves out of the League. The Board would not come down in favour of resigning from the League, our credit union Board. But they had an existing rule in which was a compromise, that old English term ‘compromise in politics’. The compromise was let’s put it a ceiling of a $1, or something like this, and if it exceeded that then we had to have another look at it. What happened was along about that time came the Savings Guarantee Fund, came the insurances, which were later seen to be proven that we needed to have those changes. I have never, ever said, ‘I told you so,’ to them, that would only wave the red rag at the bull again sort of thing. I believe let well enough alone, we are back in the League again, sort of thing, and let things go. It was seen that the financial services, the card services, the chequeing services that came along as well as the need for the Savings Protection Fund, which later became its name, those things were proven that they were needed. It just goes to show that we were silly to have got out. I don’t believe that anyone leaving the ship is the best way to have the thing sail on to your destination. When you are in trouble then everyone should try to get in there and do something about it. It really upset me to find that was the way in which we had to part company with the League.
Quite a number of credit unions left at that stage and went into other leagues, other associations. I mean there was the Association of Southern Credit Unions, which had the two branches which eventually became separate associations, the Association of Central and the Association of Northern Credit Unions. Your credit union never joined any of those did it?
JH: Yes we joined the Central Association. Well you’ve really got to be together. You really have to be together. At least they had enough sense to try to keep together with some sort of force, some sort of influential group. So we belonged to the Central Association, which had affiliations to the Southern and Northern. But while ever you’ve got people in these sorts of things, even then there are disputes between the Central Association and the Southern Association, the Central and the Northern. For every two groups you have you will have two different opinions. Unless they can get together and solve those sorts of things and define exactly what they want to achieve, and acknowledge that is the end result that they want to try and achieve and how is the best way of doing it, then accepting the majority vote, well then we are going to have these people who can very quickly form another association.
Did your credit union join the Central Association while it was still a branch of the Southern? In the first instance neither of them joined the Southern Association. Then the Southern Association started two other branches, the Central and the Northern Branch of the Southern Association. You were not in it at that stage? You weren’t in it until they were separate?
JH: No, well I think ACU was the name of the group, we joined that association as an association not as a branch or anything else.
It lasted less than a year as a part of the Southern Association.
JH: I am not surprised because they all see the opportunity of becoming recognised for themselves as I think a force. It is the old power play again.
The others have told me what happened. Bill Prince told me that they wanted some money for promotion up there and Southern wouldn’t give it to them, so they said they would start their own.
JH: See all of these things where things have started to have them spin-off from the League in the first place, promotion, spending money on doing this, spending money on doing that. Why should we have a head office in Burwood or in some place in Sydney when we need some recognition up there in the north coast and we need it in the south coast, and so forth. It does become the problem with provincial attitudes as to why you need a central office. Bill Prince and a number of other people have been involved in co-operative affairs, building societies and things like that. As to whether or not the chicken comes before the egg, or the egg comes before the chicken, in some of those cases the building society came first and the credit union came second. It was a vehicle only to gain advantage and to circumvent laws in some cases. But the writing was on the wall. Even now you can see the Association with its advertising program and TV advertising, even on my Board they question why we want to be in the advertising because it is directed at community credit unions. Well that might be so, but the biggest thing about it was that the credit union term was getting air space, it was getting TV space and it was being promoted. People, it doesn’t matter which credit union they belong to identify themselves with that advertisement. It is just a pity that it is very difficult, I think, to probably direct your advertising at one group of people. You have got to do it generally and therefore there is a lot of competition in Newcastle as there was around the Wollongong areas to gain and get that member instead of the other credit union getting that member or the other society getting that member. It is a pity, as I say again, that they couldn’t have consolidated and got one grand group together rather than a number of little Boards with little Committees getting a little number of people together.
Well of course Greater Newcastle think they are it out there, don’t they? They have got twelve organisations in the one.
JH: Well there are different ways. Australia is not run from Canberra. Australia still has its States and they have these, you might say, subsidiary organisations. The whole thing about it really is to give service. Now when the New South Wales Association started off as the Association it had a number of areas of activities. The servicing, management services, personnel services, accounting services, and things like that. Now I must admit that I am not au fait with exactly the situation of the State and Federal scene today.
Well they have had Project Renewal and they have already passed the agreement that they are going to put the State Associations just merely as service organisations and do it from a national basis. The only thing is Victoria and Queensland are still holding out and there is a court case in New South Wales.
JH: Is there? Well that is nothing new. The Victorian and Queensland Associations, it doesn’t matter whether you take it from your own credit union or whether you take it to the world organisation, and once we get into space it will be in the space problems too. Whenever you have got people together there is always that group who feel that this is the way to go. They spend hours and hours of honest diligent work in trying to figure out what is the best way to go and what is the experience of other groups, what they have seen around the world. I am not saying that these people who are involved in separate organisations today haven’t seen and experienced this, but at the same time there has to be a consensus of opinion. At some point or other you have got to say, ‘Look we have to experiment one way or another and let’s make this direction one and that other direction we will figure out when we fail with direction one.’ I do think we need to have far greater thinking. I would like to see all these people who used to say when I was involved say fifteen years ago, ‘Everything will be right when all of this group from this era have gone through and those names become historical record everything will be right. Everything will be right when we get the personalities out of the business.’ You will never ever get the personalities out of the business and what has come in, all of the trouble spots in the world, started off with personalities. Here they are today, they have become fully fledged cultures, have become religions and ways of life. They protect that sort of ideal because it has been bred into them.
Who persuaded you to put yourself forward as a a Director of the League?
JH: I don’t know now. Naturally I felt very proud. It is the kind of thing that one hopes to attain, being on the Board. I hope that I made some contribution to that. I don’t know how. The short answer is I don’t know how and when or where I came up. I may have been nominated by my credit union as a Director. I don’t even know now whether I filled a casual vacancy or whether I was first elected at a General Meeting. But the records here, there should be a Register of Directors here in the Association which can give that answer.
Yes there are. It would just show that you were elected, however.
JH: Well if that is the case then I must have come up at an Annual Meeting.
The question was who asked you to stand? You don’t know?
JH: I don’t know now, no.
It came as a shock to you did it?
JH: I don’t know. When my daughter had twins, the first grandchildren were twins, my son-in-law said to me, ‘You are still there, are you surprised?’ but I was just quiet about it. I would say you don’t go into those sorts of things without knowing that you are going to be nominated. You should accept nomination for one thing.
End Tape 1B: 4487 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.
Can you remember when you first started on the Board? You can you remember who was on the Board at the time? Do you remember who you were friendly with and who you didn’t get on with?
JH: Well I don’t think I had a disagreement with any one on the League Board, you are speaking about the League Board now. I think Berry Calverley was on the Board. Prior to Helen marrying John McIntyre, I think Helen was on the Board. We had Kevin Bain, Ken Miller, Brian Wetherby, Pat Egan, from Orange, he was on the Board.
Was George McCready on or had he gone off by then?
JH: No McCready, I don’t remember the name McCready.
He is Macquarie Credit Union.
JH: No. Macquarie, that is Dubbo? No. Bert Beaufoy was on the Board. Let me see I just can’t recollect the others at the moment.
Ken Miller was Chairman wasn’t he? He as President in what way did he control the meetings? Did he set everything out for you? Did he caucus beforehand? What was the story?
JH: One quote I liked of Ken Miller’s is, ‘Now don’t worry about this,’ he said, ‘Les Robinson is our Manager and it is his stewardship.’ That was his favourite term stewardship. ‘We were going to have to rely on that sort of thing. If he fails in that area well then he has to be the one that has to explain those sorts of things.’ But I thought that Ken Miller did a most professional job as being the Chairman and President of the League at the time when I was on it. His meetings, when you came into the meeting, you would have probably too many business papers. I always tried to read my business papers beforehand, but we used to be given sheets of these business papers. These all came, of course, from the General Manager’s desk. Esme was his secretary at the time and she did a very good job as being Les Robinson’s private secretary. We had these Board papers. Ken Miller knew the thing through and through. I often wondered just exactly where he spent most of his time. He had a very retentive memory and from his experience and from other things he was able to have a prepared statement there. He was most democratic and proper in the way in which he went about giving the meeting, not only the meeting of the Board but the Annual Meetings too, his control of Annual Meetings was a most democratic process, he gave everybody equal opportunity. He can only be commended, he is an example to follow. I don’t know whether he has read a lot as to the ways of doing it, he has obviously practiced a lot the way he has done it. He must have seen something else that probably inspired him on the way in which to go about chairing meetings. But I was always impressed with Ken Miller.
Do you remember who was the Parliamentarian at the Annual Meetings?
JH: Well Jack Lange was the Parliamentarian. Sorry, wrong. For some time, but we also had Brian Radcliffe, I think he came. He was a Parliamentarian at some of the meetings.
Anybody else?
JH: I can’t quite remember.
Peter McMahon?
JH: Sorry, Peter McMahon yes, he was there.
Both MEU those two.
JH: MEU. Of course MEU was the Municipal and Shire Council Employees Union people and they were people in there. I think having the Parliamentarian along with your meeting, number one is that they were a lot of local government people involved in the credit union movement either by way of local councils or by way of the electricity industry things, so these people were identified, they were recognised and they were just very objective. You could take them as being sort of neutral in these areas, so there was no influence being exerted.
Can you remember with some of these Annual Meetings, and some of them were Biennial Meetings twice a year, six monthly, can you remember the big meeting for instance when there was the insurance split went on?
JH: Oh yes. We were threatened with mass exodus, things like that, from the Association. It was going to be the end of it all sort of thing. I think myself that the breakaway movements have had a dismal failure. Certainly they took the larger credit unions but if you want to measure them by way of the number of credit unions they had a dismal failure in that aspect of things. You might say one Board vote took out maybe 15,000 members, but when you have a look at the number of credit unions that were in the League at the time, those sorts of things didn’t affect greatly the individual smaller community groups, or even small industry groups. The one biggest thing was to have proven to the membership that the money that they were spending on membership dues was in someway or other being returned to them and they were actually getting their money’s worth out of these things. Here they are haggling in America and everywhere else with the current Gulf War. The think that is determining the Gulf War again is money and economics. How much money is being put into these things. Be it war be it peace, money is the controlling factor or whether you are in it or whether you are out of it.
What about the insurance issue?
JH: The insurance issue from my observations CUNA Mutual certainly had a vested interest in the whole of the goings on.
Did your credit union insure with CUNA Mutual?
JH: Yes we insured with CUNA Mutual.
Did they stay with CUNA Mutual later?
JH: We left and we came back. Our Board policy and our management policy was to virtually give our insurance to the people who would give us the best deal.
That was the League’s principle wasn’t it?
JH: Yes. That was the League’s principle. If we found that CUNA Mutual wasn’t giving us a good shake for be it our loans protection or be it our general fidelity insurance or whatever, we took our business elsewhere. We moved it around. At one stage we were getting an insurance broker virtually to handle that sort of thing for us. I think as you get bigger and as you get probably a professional group managing a credit union, they are in a position, especially if you get someone who is specialised in certain fields, they have more knowledge than maybe even the Association does. I have been able to go out and start to talk to their contacts and start to barter for better services or for cheaper services for the same product. The Association, in fact the whole movement, is made up of a lot of small credit unions without the expertise. This is where they need, as we have often described it, Big Brother. They need them. It is absolutely essential if they are to go on. The best thing you can do is to get a basket of insurances whereby on the whole they will give the best coverage for the best price you can get. I think that too much of, from my observations, I felt that the insurance people were no different probably to a lot of other insurance people where they were out to sell a product and they will promise you the world, they will promote the things to the ‘nth degree. This promotion, you can see it, in the very early days we used to promote our credit union’s loans protection insurance saying it was free. Loans protection insurance is not free, it may be included with your loans but you are paying for it from actually the interest rate you are paying on your loan. So it is not free, it does cost you something. That is where one must make the distinction with these things, the credit union is paying for it, the membership is therefore paying for it, the people who are borrowing the money are paying for it. Today we see the services of credit unions virtually a user-pays system coming more into it, where you have actually got to have more money held in your deposits before you might get certain benefits. Whether or not we turn right round the clock and later on go right back to where we started, where just all the income comes from the loans, I don’t know. At the moment it is the user-pays. I felt one of the problems with the loans protection insurance, for instance, was they were able to make these ex-gratia payments without admitting liability. I don’t know whether the credit unions in total were getting a consistent ruling on these sorts of things or whether the influences of that credit union were saying, ‘Well if you don’t give us this payment, we feel it is an honest situation, if you don’t give it to us we will take our insurances elsewhere.’ Of course these insurances from say a 20,000 member credit union is big bucks. From 1,000 then they are not so big and they say, ‘If you can get better insurance, then you take your insurance elsewhere,’ knowing that no-one sort of wants to get into a 1,000 member credit union because there is not a lot of money in there and there is a lot of liability.
What about Stan Arneil’s attitude? I know he was Manager at that time of CUNA Mutual-CUMIS in Australia, but he claimed although they might not have been getting the best deal that could be got in insurance, since it was a credit union organisation controlled within the credit union movement, they should stick with it.
JH: Well sitting on the Board in Sydney and not having been overseas, not able to study all of the sorts of things that were going on overseas, seeing the influences that were being brought to bear from the World Council, at that stage, there was two groups working hand in hand, the insurance arm and the political arm, these people were working hand in hand. The money that was coming in was all going into the insurance sphere of things and if there is any criticism of the credit union movement I could give is the fact that a number of credit unions seemed to have an open cheque book. There has been criticism, as you know, of certain spendings and things going on as to whether or not they were justified. Our Board certainly came under fire, from within the Board, of certain groups and later Board members, certainly they came under fire when we first attended Tasmania to see an AFCUL meeting down in Tasmania, and in attending Fiji to see the Bergengren School open there. These sorts of things and as to how far you go with the things, there always has to be some sort of line, a cost-benefit basis determined on these sorts of things. Unfortunately the benefit is not a dollar and cents benefit. But I think that the insurance arm seemed to be wanting to control things. In lots of things the insurance arm, and I can remember the Schools where the insurance people were financing the Schools apart from the membership paying for your fees there, but they were virtually from within the insurance people. They were exerting their philosophies and their doctrines on what credit unions should do. I think they should really be very careful as to criticising one side or another. The insurance people should stick to insurance, they shouldn’t be getting into those areas. They can help but they shouldn’t be coming so obvious and so loud in their discussions and their movements and their influences in areas of development in areas of management of credit unions. Certainly management for insurance purposes yes, but not in a lot of the other ways. There is a certain amount of critical comment being made by insurance people as to whether or not they were getting the best advice from the League, that there was better advice. I think insurance people should realise development is for development and accounting is for accountants.
What about the argument that the Development Pool wasn’t being held in Australia, that in fact it was under the control of the Americans?
JH: Well those sorts of things were given to us as being the case. Without being able to sort of see the dollars and cents to it, the pounds shillings and pence that were being collected here you don’t sort of trace the money movements. But obviously they were just a little bit too easy and too free, certainly the money that was being spent in a promotional sphere within the credit union movement itself was certainly coming from the insurance people. Yes we were told that the money was being virtually just channelled off into a central world pool, whereby they can do other things. Now CUNA Mutual did some wonderful things for a lot of people throughout the world, but if you are going to spend money and take it from one place and put it into another place somewhere else, I think the recognition should be given that this is where these sorts of funds were first accumulated, a certain amount was spent in there and they should have been honest in indicating where the moneys went. I don’t suppose anything was kind of changed from the time that we were involved first with CUNA Mutual. I don’t believe anything was changed, it was just a matter of the fact of accounting for it. The fact too that I suppose the insurance people did want to do their bit and what they considered was there job. When it came around to being challenged about this sort of thing they should have really put their cards on the table and said this is what they did.
Do you remember, or was it before your time, it was before and during the time that CUNA Mutual-CUMIS took over the insurances, there was a pool or rebates mounting up which came up to $1 million at one stage of the thing. Dermot Ryan was arguing that it shouldn’t be returned and that was passed. Do you remember that being passed at a meeting, that they should return it to the credit unions this pool? They should use it for the start of a Savings Stabilisation Fund, as it was called then Savings Protection Fund later.
JH: No I don’t specifically remember that particular comment, but it is the typical kind of thing that they do do, whereby they have got this money available, or any money available, and they can bring up at an AGM some sort of resolution or move a motion to that effect. Because nobody wants to get up there and take the Devil’s Advocate position and start to talk against these things, naturally enough what will happen is that the idea of utilising that pool in some other different direction will carry. A credit union that hasn’t had the money returned to it will say they are not losing anything, but when you start to add up there are hundred and thousands here, and what you say a $1 million is the figure. But I don’t specifically remember that particular case but I could imagine myself being in the meeting and going along with the idea. Most of the money was coming from loans protection insurance, most of the premiums. Certainly the fidelity guarantee and losses through defalcation and all those sorts of things would have been there, but loans protection insurance was the big premium payment. We got down to a point in our particular case, because we were an industry-type credit union and therefore we were looking at people who were virtually employed from fifteen to about sixty years of age and sixty-five in some cases, where we had a number of cases where we exceeded, our claims exceeded, the actual premiums we were paying. In those days we used to have a flat charge, there was no experience basis involved in it. I think today, depending on how much is involved, even today I would probably argue for the fact that within a reasonable sort of thing money could be kept for some worthwhile purpose.
Well the argument according to my reading of the Minutes and such like was that Dermot kept on putting it up that this was the method they should use to finance the Savings Protection Fund. He would carry it at the six monthly biennial meeting and then go back to the Board meeting and get knocked over again. Then he would come back to the next meeting and carry it again. I believe he did this three times and got knocked over by the Board four times. The argument on the other side was that you shouldn’t have that sort of scheme unless it was going to be compulsory, that some people weren’t paying.
JH: Well the Savings Guarantee Fund.
It was called the Savings Stabilisation Fund, then Guarantee.
JH: Yes, it went through these names. Under the Act they couldn’t guarantee anything. Then Stabilisation became the thing and Protection. You know what you are speaking of there I don’t remember those particular episodes. You are speaking here in two different stages, the insurance funds, once the Stabilisation Fund or whatever you call it was established, then that should have its own separate funding. But before and to establish a basis of funds if there was a pool of funds that was around which was available then why not be able to use it. Again I wouldn’t go to the extent of three times getting your head barrelled sort of thing three times. Obviously you try it on and if it doesn’t work well then the majority don’t want it.
No the Annual Meetings were passing it. They were passing it and the Board was knocking it back.
JH: Yes.
You weren’t on the Board at that time, that is what I am getting at?
JH: I don’t remember those occasions, but I was on the Board at the time when the Savings Protection, or the old Savings Guarantee Fund business, was getting, and the insurance problems were all getting, this treatment.
Can you remember who was on which side and what the arguments were?
JH: No I don’t. When a vote goes I don’t particularly want to know who votes for what. I don’t believe in affiliating or giving my support to the individual. My support goes to the idea. I don’t want to see who votes against me or with me or anything else.
Were there any arguments with the Board do you remember?
JH: Yes there are always arguments, but I don’t think I was involved in those particular arguments.
The Board, when you were on it, Les Robinson did he attend the meetings of course?
JH: Yes Les Robinson was the General Manager. So also would the Managers of the various Departments of Insurance and Promotion, development, Management Services, they would sit around the outer rim, around the wall, of the meeting in this particular building. They would have their interests there. I don’t ever remember, it is possible, that a Manager or a group would be only there to support particular questions or be able to answer questions. But everything properly, with Ken Miller, went through the Chair, went to his Steward, Les Robinson, and the things were answered there. Les Robinson also had a very keen and deep involvement in a lot of things. I know that in the end there was a parting of the ways there and not in the best circumstances, but that would have been a thing which developed at that particular stage. I thought that Les had a good grip on what was going on at that particular stage and the meetings were there as I said guided by a number of the management staff. Probably if anything that might be a criticism of things, after the Board meeting because we wouldn’t have had any dinner or any tea, we would all repair to a restaurant and have our meals there. This was another thing at the Committee meetings I was involved with, although I don’t remember the number of Committees that I was on. The same thing was done again where you would go off to a restaurant and this would all be picked up by the League. Mind you we were all Honorary Members of Boards and Committees, we weren’t paid any fees. In a number of credit unions in one way or another, credit unions paid an attendance fee or something or other for their out-of-pocket expenses. So someone has got to pay the fees and it is up to the individual credit union as to how they treat that matter.
What Committees were you on? Were you on the Savings Protection Fund Committee?
JH: I don’t think so. I am afraid I am a bit vague. My involvement used to be on a need to sort of serve basis. If in that week I used to have to go to a Committee meeting well I just had credit union business to do or a night time and I attended. This is what I was going to say before too, I felt that a lot of us people who had a normal career situation outside of the credit union industry itself, it took quite a person to do both jobs. To pursue their career with their utmost ability and also to pursue credit union activities within their own credit union and then into the State and Federal spheres of doing things, as well as some of the other things, subsidiary things in the movement within the credit union industry itself. So when I attended a meeting I am afraid I just dealt with the business paper at that particular time, if I was on a Committee for something at ABC I just did the work associated with it. I wasn’t a specialist in anything, as I said I think I was just one of these volunteer, part-time Directors.
Did you attend the meetings of the Common Board when they were stabilising various credit unions?
JH: No that happened after. The stabilisations didn’t take place until after we left the League and re-joined it. I wasn’t involved in those things. Our managers, our Manager and our Loans Manager attended to those sorts of things when the BMC situation came up.
Were you involved with any of the planning or any of the decisions regarding the central banking arrangements?
JH: No I wasn’t. No not really.
But the setting up of the Stabilisation Fund you were involved with that?
JH: It was on but the involvement in it was no more than any other Director attending a Directors’ meeting.
So what were the issues that were around at the time, can you remember, apart from dues?
JH: One of the things was the building fund, buying a building. If anything, not one of the embarrassments but I think they are going to have quite a capital appreciation on this building when they come around to winding up the State organisation and putting whatever reserves and whatever they have accumulated from this building, unless they have borrowed against it. I don’t know what they have done with that. The building was a thing that had been going on from day one sort of thing, as to having a building for the League. They used to have one down in Burwood, down the other end of the main street they had a flat down there, a block of flats or something. Now they are here and this building should be a most attractive situation despite the fact of the market. I feel that it is in a good position and it is decentralised. Even the State Lotteries and other government departments had wanted it before even the League, as it was in those days, acquired the title to ownership of it. So the building was always a thing and probably at the last Annual General Meeting I wouldn’t have been surprised if it wasn’t said during the meeting it wasn’t said in the back-blocks that the building was costing us a lot of money, sort of thing. But you just have to have some central repository for the records and for meetings and for the centralised staff.
Do you remember the argument about putting Savings Protection Fund money into the building?
JH: I don’t remember it specifically. I don’t really see the problem with it, because this is what companies do all the time. It is a business practice that goes in, investing in yourself. If you believe in yourself, you believe in your organisation, then what’s wrong with putting it into a building. In those days, in all those sorts of things, you’ve really got to take it in context with what was going on in the business world at that time. We were also in a very strongly moving time, strongly moving economy and property would have been expanding and also getting a lot of capital appreciation before the taxation business came into it when you had to consider it.
Was Bob Monaghan on the Board when you were there?
JH: Yes Bob was there. He was from Earlwood wasn’t he?
Yes. He was one of the one’s that argued strongly against putting it in.
JH: Well you see Bob is an accountant I think, from memory. Earlwood had their own building too mind you.
End Tape 2A: 4319 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.
There is another we haven’t covered here, it is not the Savings Protection Fund exactly but the lead up to the Reserve Fund. The political goings-on and the lobbying within the credit union movement and also the Parliamentary end of things. Were you involved in any of that?
JH: Well I believed we needed a fund of some kind or other for stabilisation, giving protection and in small ‘g’ guarantee, that members are not going to lose their shirt if the credit union folds for one reason or another. The thing was being bandied around and there was a certain amount of lobbying going on, in fact there was a lot of lobbying going on.
Were you involved with it?
JH: I wasn’t involved with lobbying. I was trying to stabilise the ideas of our Board and the credit union to seeing the advantages of having such a fund. Of course the typical one at the time as an example was the building societies. I think there was at the time some evidence of some sort of stabilisation needed in the building societies and I believe at the time the building societies had that fund. I believe it was just a step in a responsible attitude in seeing that this was a possibility, we should do something about making sure that we weren’t going to lose the funds of our members. So therefore I felt that we should do the best we could with our Board. My role in the movement was purely and simply a thing that was sort of self-imposed, not given to me, to try and get through my ideas to my Board without going out and looking for trying to gain a grouping which was going to be an influential group within our Board. It is no good having say seven to six in favour of something or other because you have always got these six people who are committed one way or another. I know that the six or the seven might already have their allegiance to a particular group and again it comes down to personalities. They get down to the hotel of a night time and they talk about these things and unfortunately they start to formulate opinions when they have not got their full faculties there, they start to get these opinions. I felt my role in getting these things introduced was first of all to convince my Board that this was needed and this was the way to go. My beliefs have been proven correct. The people who were opposing those things in those days, although they have never admitted it, must realise now that they needed something in those days. So that was my involvement. Certainly representing the League and attending as Duty Director at some of the Chapter meetings in the country, or in other places Parramatta Chapter and places like that. I would attend those meetings and I would try to bring to the meeting some of the ideas of the Board and in answer to questions satisfy people at those meetings. But more my role, I thought, was firstly and foremost in my credit union and that was the greatest influence that I could bring to bear, there.
What about the voluntary-compulsory argument?
JH: It is no good having a voluntary anything. I am wrong there, yes there were volunteers who were going over to the war therefore those people can raise enough numbers as they can from volunteers. But in a thing like this either you are in as a member or you are not in as a member. If you are not in then you are out. It is a voluntary business when you join the membership of anything, therefore if you don’t believe in those things and you can’t do anything to change them and you are strong enough against it well then you leave the group. Anyone who is in as a member is in for the whole thing.
Were there any arguments in ACCU as to whether it should be a voluntary or compulsory fund?
JH: Well ACCU were lucky they didn’t have to argue the fact because the State Government brought the thing in anyway.
They were represented. You were never representing them were you?
JH: Never representing ACCU, or no I was never representing ACCU.
They had an Advisory Board, were you ever on the Advisory Board?
JH: No. They had an Advisory Board and ACCU, in fact all associations, had a representative on that Advisory Board. But I never ever sought to have any position within the Association outside the New South Wales League.
But when your credit union was out of the New South Wales League in ACCU were you involved at all at that stage in persuading your people?
JH: Oh well it was a matter of statute at that stage.
No not all. The Yes case and the No case were brought up and I believe Tom Hanson of the Southern Association presented the No case.
JH: No, I am afraid that well what I did was that I was just inactive in ACCU. I wasn’t going to get involved and support ACCU. We had to be in ACCU, we had to be in an association. ACCU was the second best as far as I was concerned to being in the League. I never ever got involved with that particular part of it and I started to feel, I suppose, a bit put out. Those jokers you can’t influence them, I would imagine.
Which jokers?
JH: The associations other than the League. The people who left the League or were never in the League were always opposed to that sort of thing. So I think it was just beating your brains against a wall if you were going to try and convince these characters that they should be in it. Of course they are virtually all in favour of not being in it in the first place. I never got involved in politics within that ACCU business at all, I was only pleased to see them go out of the door.
I was looking at their books this morning, I was cataloguing the stuff we’ve got down there in the Historical Co-operative now, all the Minutes and their Attendance Books and that sort of thing.
JH: You know they would certainly point to things other than their own philosophies to say why they failed. I think they failed for the same reason as why they left the League. You can’t try to impose the will of so many and get everybody to accept it. The people who don’t accept it should just turn around and look at the democratic principle of the thing, that maybe they are right and I am wrong if you are in a minority.
Well they did eventually.
JH: Well they had to. They had to didn’t they.
Well I think Tom Hanson retired at that stage of the proceedings.
JH: Oh Tom Hanson would have only been one of those people who got them into a situation like that. Again those other people are still around.
There are two matters that I believe were on at the time you were a Director and we haven’t discussed. One was deficit budgeting and the other was community credit unions. Were you involved in the argument about deficit budgeting?
JH: Oh well not having had any training in the accounting sphere of industry, I therefore can’t speak as a professional or talk from experience at all. But after all just about every household goes into deficit budgeting from the time that two people get married. They buy their house on deficit budgeting. They are often buying their car, raising their children, they are doing all of these things on deficit budgeting. Therefore I believe you call those things mortgages and of course that is different, it is always different you know, but in principle it is the same thing. The thing about deficit budgeting is that it has to be controlled and it can very easily get out of control. Around about that time was when accountants started to come into the fore as far as I saw it with everything being classified and costed. That bit of that money there belonged to that bit there. It seemed to have a greater and greater influence on the whole of our society as to how you accounted for expenses. Now deficit budgeting really does need a proper definition as to what belongs to what, which part is speculative and which part is essential. Things started to get out of control and here is Australia, with all the bright brains that they have got in Australia, getting into deficit budgeting. Because the individual people, the individual accounts goes to make up the total budget starts to have the ways of what the people want to do. The people therefore influence the way in which the trends go and here they are trying their darnedest to be in one way not to put in restrictions as to what you can buy and keep it a nice democratic society, but at the same time trying to cut out and cut you down. So deficit budgeting in principle I believe in the principle of it. How far you go with it is a matter of judgement and that is what the Board is responsible for. If people don’t like to do that, they should oust the Board entirely and say what they want to do from here on and come up with some alternative. But when we were in a situation of development, and at that particular time we never had card services, we never had cheque accounting facilities, we never had this we never had that, we were very much the underprivileged financial group in the whole of the community. Now we have introduced those things all from virtually doing it from deficit budgeting. If you believe in your future, that the credit union movement will be here until you die, until the next generation and then the next generation, then I can’t see why future generations can’t pay for some of the development. After all I suppose the old age pension was like that, where one time we are paying taxes for people who have been working for their lifetime and we are supporting those people. Things are changing now and changing drastically, but I think if you believe in your future then it is the future that is going to be paying for things now. The only problem is of course that the future generations have to believe in that sort of thing themselves. That is the way you went for it. There should be very, very tight control on just exactly where you spend your money and how you spend it, but deficit budgeting yes.
What about the establishment of community credit unions and mutual credit unions? You were on the Board at the time that was very much the go. Can you remember any discussions on that?
JH: Oh yes. Earlwood, Jim Byrne was there, he went off to Moss Vale I think it was, or Bowral or somewhere round the Southern Highlands. He and I were personal contact. I think his wife and mine were at school together, or something like that I am not quite sure. Paul Bounds was another one. See the Sydney Water Board went from purely industrial and they saw that they had to increase their membership because the unit cost starts to come down of course with the wider span of your services. If you can get more people to share those services, as I mentioned before the computer you can service 30,000 as well as you can 15,000 on the same computer, so the unit cost comes down. What they did was that they went from Sydney Water Board and they went out into Penrith and they started to establish a community credit union out there. But at the same time I believe that the true, as I said before in our discussions, that you have got a greater binding force with your family than you do have by just working one person within a large group of people. I think the community is the family and what do they say, you pray together and stay together and all that sort of thing. Well you’ve got your community, the kids play in the area, they go to school in the area, they go to church in the area, they go shopping in the area and you’ve got really an identification there. Even though you might change houses three or four times in a lifetime, I think that is the average to buy a different house, but there is a close-knit framework within your community. In some cases a community is well-defined, in other cases a community is not very well-defined. It drifts from one suburb into the next, it drifts out of areas. Earlwood I think started off virtually in a Catholic Church area. It then expanded out of the church, which had a known population, into a residential population. You could do the same thing for Lithgow where they have a co-operative credit union at Lithgow. Lithgow has a very nice location because it is surrounded by bush and it has got a geographic separation from one to the other. You have got an identity of people. You drive in at one end of Lithgow and they know you by the time you have driven out the other side of Lithgow. I think that sort of thing is part of the policing. It is not very different to Neighbourhood Watch where part of your credibility is how you behave in that area. If it is not known how you behave, how can you be trusted? You have got to prove yourself to the people. So community credit unions are great. They afford the opportunity of people to be judged within their own district. I suppose following on from that it might even improve the way in which they conduct themselves if they know that they are going to be judged for things in their own area. But yes I was involved in the community business.
Did you go out speaking when they were starting them?
JH: Yes I believe that I was and as Duty Director I attended Orange, one of the places, Narrabri I think it was. I forget now. Certainly on Chapters too, the Parramatta Chapter. These sorts of things were in place, there were community credit unions which were operating fairly well. In all of these steps, one of the big problems, in the great sprawl of Sydney does increase the possibilities of problems and I believe it has actually contributed to the problems, also people moving from one place to another. But these things are only experiences that we have got to experience and know how to adjust, or learn how to adjust to them so that later on that sort of experience should be filed away nicely of what we did here and what we did there, what were the similarities of treating the problem. Yes community credit unions I was all in favour of them and I am still in favour of them. In fact I live in an area, and I must admit I have only been there for six months, but I still belong to the Electricity Commission Employees, or the Power Credit Union, but they have got the Macarthur Credit Union operating in Camden. I wasn’t impressed when I went up to the counter to ask about membership there. I wasn’t impressed because they had a new girl on at a new branch at Narellan and well I think I could have done more for promoting her credit union that she did. When I started asking questions she just didn’t know how to answer, didn’t know anything about it. That is the old thing, that is where you have got to sell it right at the coal face sort of thing. Where you are going to deal with your member you have got to be able to sell your credit union. They have an excellent opportunity of doing this in the Camden area. Because it is ringed by natural barriers of bushlands they have got an opportunity of being able to be identified within their area and be recognised, whereas industrials don’t really have that. All they have got is the knowledge of employee who has a credit union operating within their employment area and that they can get the facilities of a credit union there and then. But my wife used to complain how did she get to the money if the money was being held in Sydney. That is a fairly valid point and our credit union, Power, have introduced branches where wives can get to branch offices.
Is that an agency?
JH: Oh no.
How many branch offices now?
JH: Well a number of places. We have got them virtually in residential areas, established. Not within Sydney but particularly in the country areas around the place so that wives can get into them. Who hasn’t got a car, not very many people, so therefore they can get into their branch and get access into it. A lot of the locations where we had reps before, virtually only authorised vehicles could enter certain places so we had to get them at places where wives could get into. Again the Association, the New South Wales Association, gave some portability to money and that was an essential ingredient for everybody to get access. I find it difficult now to get back to my old credit union because the closest contact I have got, other than through the ATMs and the deposit in an envelope, back from Camden to Parramatta. So therefore I have to rearrange my financial activities to suit myself. I can’t be travelling backwards and forwards to deposit money when I don’t have any income coming directly into that credit union. But when you live in an area I believe that is where you should be conducting your financial affairs, credit union activities.
What about the, well the next question is, the bond? There is a move afoot in some instances to do away with the bond, or at least to have overlapping bonds. What is your attitude to that?
JH: I think this will be going when my grandchildren pass away. I don’t have a short answer. I don’t suppose any of my answers have been short. Anyway the thing about bonds, what is a bond? It is the kind of thing that started off to make somebody feel responsible to a centralised management group or a centralised ownership, which is your credit union basis. You know a lot of bonds start off in the Islands areas and in a lot of other places. You had a village, you had a bond, because everybody was known. You had in the Islands, again you had a village or an island and they had a credit union. Out here it is far more difficult to identify just who you belong to. Do you belong to your church? Do you belong to your neighbourhood group? Do you belong to your sporting group? Do you belong to where you work? Now where ever you go and try to satisfy some of those things you can have bonds with all of those people, very, very close bonds with those people. So you have to identify exactly which one you want to belong to. Now the problem with it is, maybe say the church bond can’t give you the same benefits as your industrial bond can give you, because it doesn’t have the backing. Your social group or your sporting group mightn’t have the number of members that can give you the kind of services that are available to your industrial group, and through your industrial group maybe to some industrial group that is getting bigger and bigger all the time. So it is quite a problem and this is where I believe the Big Brother business comes in. We are members of a credit union group and the identity of your bond starts to get very difficult. They shouldn’t be used. Bonds shouldn’t be used as purely and simply an excuse to start a credit union and that is how they have been used and abused by people starting credit unions just for the sake of, ‘Well if we start this credit union what we can do is use that and give those people some money and investments there and let them turn around and start lending that money to those particular groups.’ The thing I have got against having multiplicity of memberships of credit unions is that for every credit union you belong to, you have some unsecured indebtedness that you are allowed to do under the Act by virtue of membership of that credit union, even though you might declare the membership of another credit union. A lot of these cases are hard cases, they don’t declare what their indebtedness is to another credit union. Therefore they can commit an act of fraud. But at the same time, the act is done, the money is given to them in good faith and they find they have got to spend another $20 a week to pay off that loan. So they build up. The problem with starting you could have, like you mentioned, The Lakes and our credit union. Now you could belong to The Lakes because you came out of our credit union and your job took you over to the Lakes area well you could belong to The Lakes Credit Union. So you belong to two credit unions within the industry, within the Electricity Commission. Now each of them could have had say $5,000, $10,000 unsecured and they are your problem children and you don’t really know about it until it is too late. You make all the laws about the place, letters approving giving them a loan and all this, but the fact is you don’t know about it until after the fact and it is too late. So bonds have created quite a bit of trouble. They mean it in the best of interests, I suppose, to give and spread their services into areas that don’t have the services that they can give. But at the same time, they are creating a lot of enmity between people who are trying to get and attain that stage with their credit union, by some other credit union coming in. So if you remove these identities of other credit unions and have just like one card that you just go through some place or other with identification, I think that would decrease the bad image or the bad affect it is having between credit unions vying for memberships. Numbers are not everything. We can trick ourselves because if everybody belonged to two credit unions then you have got twice your membership, but that is not twice the number of people, it is only twice memberships.
When you went out off the Board, the agency arrangement working party was that on or hadn’t it started then? Because that is what they tried to do, what you were just talking about.
JH: No the agency developed afterwards.
They were trying to promote the use of each other’s offices all around the area.
JH: That is all very well. The problem is, and here is an example, Power Credit Union give me a cheque book at no cost. I can run my cheque accounts through there and all I do is pay stamp duty on the cheques, which I don’t think there is any now. So it is virtually a free cheque account. Sorry the Power Credit Union doesn’t charge me for any of the other taxes imposed for State and Federal duties. Now other credit unions say you have got to pay for those things and you have got to pay for this. So what is going around is a cheque book that looks the same, doesn’t matter which area it comes from so long as it comes from the Association, it is the same looking cheque book. But if I go there I have got to pay a certain amount of money for it, here it doesn’t cost me anything and there might be different fees attached to another credit union. So I believe there should be a universal expense for all those things, not levied by one credit union because they see it as a way of subsidising the introduction of it. This is what was good about the Bankcard. Bankcard was a universal card. I always believed that we should somehow or other do away with all of these credit cards and come up with one card which identifies, and Visa does this in lots of ways. It should come up with just one credit card which goes off to whatever your nominated account is. You would start to cut down double and triple and quadruple dipping of people using Bankcard, Visacard and you name it, whatever other card they have got, and getting themselves into desperate situations. You can do it by centralising your money or even just spreading it to a couple of places which you can nominate by pressing a button on the ATM.
You were involved with credit unions and with the League for a number of years and you used to have a lot of evening work I suppose. Do you think your community involvements adversely affected your health or your family life?
JH: I don’t believe it affected my health. It certainly took me out of the home. My credit union work involved with the Association, that didn’t make as big an in-road into the credit union work that I was involved with, with my credit union. Then again my position is sort of different to a lot of other people because even though they were involved with the credit union movement, they were virtually involved with only their own credit union and they were involved only say as a Director. The positions that I held as Chairman, I felt that I had to do the job and that I had to be in on these things, although I suppose a lot of these things could have been delegated. You can’t be Chairman and taking the responsibility of these things without actually knowing what the devil they are talking about. So I felt you had to be involved to some degree yourself. Certainly those sorts of things took me to more meetings. I had to represent the credit union, well I felt I had to represent the credit union, when I could at meetings which I believe were sort of necessary. Later on when you get a professional management into your credit union then professional Managers, full-time Managers start to become the representative of the credit union. A lot of these meetings are being held and a lot of the decisions are being made during the normal working hours. When you have got to work and get your payment from a boss, he can’t afford to give you the time off to go to all these meetings and as a Director you are not as close to the working face of getting with the member, as you are with the person who serves at the counter and taking the day to day decisions, as would be the Manager or some of his senior staff. So yes it did affect my home life to some degree, but well we are still married.
Is there anything I should have asked you that I haven’t?
JH: Gee whiz, I think you have been fairly wide in your whole thing. I mentioned one of the summary of questions you were going to ask was the fact of the greatest disappointment. As I said before the greatest disappointment was having to be involved and being Chairman of the credit union at a time when we were forced to resign from the League by virtue of my inability, I suppose, to counter some of the moves to get us out of the League. I knew it was going on but I just couldn’t handle the situation.
End Tape 2B: 4764 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.