26 JULY 1990: ANSWCU71: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO NEVILLE DANIELS
I will ask you, where were you born Mr Daniels?
ND: Well I was born in Bungendore, New South Wales.
When?
ND: In September 1927.
Did you grow up around there?
ND: I stayed in Bungendore until I left school at the age of fourteen. Then I went on to Canberra to work in the Post Office in the early days for the first couple of years of my working life. Then I lost my father, he died when I was fifteen and we eventually moved back to Captains Flat. My mother was a native of Captains Flat and we moved back there, my brother and myself and my mother. We lived there until 1954 when I moved to Wollongong.
What sort of influence do you think you got from your father?
ND: Well unfortunately I didn’t know him as an adult to an adult. I was a child, he died as I said when I was fifteen. I can remember vividly his life in the Depression years, you know in the 1930s, the late 1930s.
Did that have a great affect on you?
ND: Oh yes. That has always stayed in my memory. I can remember you used to have to line up for the dole and they only got the coupons. They got Jack Lang coats and sometimes once a year or something they would get a pair of boots. That has always stuck in my memory.
You as a kid going to school do you remember where you went to school?
ND: Where I went to school? I went to the Bungendore Public School. Only a two-room school house. There was what they called primary and senior. No high school at all in Bungendore. If anyone wanted to go to high school they had to travel by train to Queanbeyan which was out of our league anyway because we didn’t have the finance to do that.
What did you like and dislike about school?
ND: I liked the school. I was pretty keen at school. I have still got books and one thing to say I was either first or second in the class nearly year after year. I always liked school and would never miss a day’s school if I could help it, had a job to keep me away from school. I remember through the War years at the school where we used to spend a lot of our time out digging air raid trenches and things like that, in the War years. So it wasn’t all school work it was manual work as well.
What subjects did you like and dislike?
ND: I was always good at spelling and maths and I think they would be the two main ones.
What about sport, did you play much sport?
ND: Well I wasn’t a keen sportsman. I used to try and play the school sports, you know the cricket and a bit of football and that, but I was never a very keen sportsman. Haven’t got anything to show much for my sporting prowess.
So when you left school and you started work what was that job like?
ND: I rather liked it. My father, I can remember him always saying to me when we were children that I wasn’t to be a labourer like he was, I had to get into a good job and stay there. I know that he was very keen on me getting into the Post Office. I know that he spoke to the Post Master at Bungendore but there were no positions there. I had a letter of introduction to the Post Master in Canberra and I was successful in getting a job there and I thought I was pretty lucky at the time. But the pay in those days was very low. Although we used to get a living away allowance by the time you had paid your board at the boarding house and lived there was very little left. I used to be only able to afford to go home to Bungendore about every six weeks in those days because I just didn’t have the money left over to do it. I didn’t mind the job. It was a job where I started off as a telegraph messenger and then went on to be a postman.
Did you learn the morse code?
ND: No. No that is one of the things I didn’t do. They were always at me when I first started to take the exams and move up but I didn’t take any of those. I ended up being a postman and in those days I used to start about six o’clock in the morning to sort the mail. You had your own run to do and when that was finished you were finished for the day. Often of a Monday, when the mail was light, we would be back home again by nine o’clock. Normally it would be about one o’clock in the day when you would finish. But you could often be finished at nine o’clock in the morning, so I used to like the job all right but it was very poor pay in those days.
As far as credit, did you borrow money at all when you were young?
ND: No I don’t ever remember borrowing money like that at all until I did buy a car in 1950. I bought a new car in 1950 and obviously had some finance for that, used car finance. That is the only time I think I borrowed money until 1954 when I bought this house. Then I went into a mortgage down here and had to sell the car of course to get the deposit to buy the house. In those days houses weren’t very dear either, but nobody had too much finance around.
Did you have any trouble getting the mortgage? Who did you get it from?
ND: The only place I could get it from was an insurance company, Colonial Mutual Insurance. I wasn’t very up with the ways of finance and things like that in those days. I can remember telling people at work that I got my loan through an insurance company and they said, ‘Oh heaven’s forbid, don’t let them get their fangs into you.’ But the thing that I will always remember with a great lot of pleasure is that as the years went on and the interest rates started to climb, I was one of the only ones that I knew whose interest rate never changed. I took the loan out at 5 per cent in 1954 and when I completed it many, many years afterwards it was still 5 per cent.
Reducible?
ND: Yes. 5 per cent reducible. So I was on a really good thing. Several times in later years CML offered for me to pay out the loan, you know. But I wasn’t in for any large amount and of course any savings I had were earning a lot more money in them days than 5 per cent, so I didn’t rush in to pay it off. I didn’t do too badly by going into that particular loan with an insurance company in those days.
Now when did you first hear about credit unions?
ND: That would have been I would say early in 1960, in the 60s, either 1960 or 1961. I used to speak to a fellow at work who had belonged to a credit union either at Bemboka or Candelo, I can’t recall now which. But he belonged to a community credit union way down the south coast. He was working with the County Council as a meter reader and he often used to tell me of the virtues of a credit union and some of the principles of them. That is all I had really known about them until I got involved myself.
Were those ones at Candelo and places likes that, were they really community credit unions or were they parish ones, Catholic ones?
ND: I couldn’t tell you now. I understood that they were community. Or the Candelo one was, I think it was a community one.
Are you a Catholic?
ND: No, I am not.
It is just that a lot of them in the credit union movement are. They did come in via some Catholic influence.
ND: No that had nothing to do with my belonging to it.
So were you actually one of the foundation members here?
ND: Yes.
So what happened?
ND: Other than what I have already said about this fellow called Collins who had belonged to one, the next I heard about credit unions was when big Stan Arneil came to me at work. I was the ETU shop steward at work in those days, at the main depot down there. He approached me and said that his job was to form credit unions in New South Wales and he thought that it would be a good idea if we formed one within the County Council. He was already going to do one over at the City Council and I think Huntley Colliery at the same time. He wanted to know if I would be in favour of calling a meeting that he could address to let the members know that he wanted to form a credit union and get their support. I did and the meeting was called before work at seven a.m. in the car park on a July morning in 1964. I can still remember Stan Arneil coming and complaining about having to come from Sydney and be out in the car park at seven o’clock in the morning.
I don’t blame him.
ND: He was quite a character, as you would know if you knew Stan Arneil. He had a big influence on the meeting in the way that he used to put things across. He used to talk figures as if he was reading them out of the telephone book. We didn’t really believe that the credit union movement would grow to the extent that it has, but even in those early days he was talking figures with noughts after noughts on the end of them that we didn’t really believe would happen.
Has it happened?
ND: It has happened yes. Probably the greatest pride of my life is to see where our credit union has gone. We have got thousands of members now, five or six thousand members and assets well up in the $20 million and things like that. It has done wonderfully well.
So at that meeting did they decide to form a credit union?
ND: Yes they decided to form the credit union. Then Stan Arneil approached me, because I was the shop steward, to be a provisional Director until we got it started. I at first refused and said I had plenty on my plate being the shop steward and I didn’t want to take anything else on. Also at the time I was in just about everything that was going. Children were at school and I was always President or Vice-President or something at the PCs and the schools while they were at school. I was heavily involved with the Australian Labor Party at Corrimal Branch, I was President there for a number of years. You know I seemed to be in plenty of things without going into the credit union but he said, ‘Look if you just come in it for the first six months, until the first Annual Meeting, until we get it started.’ He said, ‘I need people who have got a bit of influence so that if they come into it the others will follow in.’ So I agreed to do the six months and that is where it all started.
How many years?
ND: Oh I think I did fourteen or fifteen years straight.
As Chairman?
ND: No. I did ten years Chairman out of that. But I remember when the six months was up I became so interested and so involved in the credit union that I immediately gave away the union job. I had always been interested in unions, but I gave away the union job and concentrated on the credit union.
We have got a bit of a gap here. Now you must have got an apprenticeship if you became an electrician, did you, or became an electrical mechanic?
ND: No I became an electrical linesman which was possible by doing a correspondence course while you were learning. You had to do a correspondence course, so I completed that course. When I first came to Wollongong from Captains Flat, I worked in the mine at Captains Flat after I left the Post Office at Canberra for ten years, then I came down here in 1954. When I got this loan for my house the fellow that interviewed me asked me was I employed and I said, ‘Not at the moment. I have just bought a house down here, I want to buy this house down here and get a job.’ He said, ‘Well before I finally approve it you will have to come back and tell me you have got a job.’ So I walked out of there and I walked down the street and I saw the Water Board advertising men wanted. I walked in there and got a job straight away. I went back and told him I had a job at the Water Board. I stayed there for ten months before I met an old friend of mine who was working on the County Council and he said, ‘Why don’t you and try and get a job on the County Council?’ So that is how that happened. I went and got employed at the County Council after that.
That is very good. How about the union, how did you get involved as a delegate there?
ND: Well I had been involved with unions, on committees and one thing or another when I worked in the mine at Captains Flat. I was well aware of the union movement because those days were pretty hurly-burly in Captains Flat. A lot of strikes.
What sort of mine was that?
ND: That was a metalliferous mine, lead and zinc were the two main metals.
What was the union?
ND: It was the AWU in those days but during the time that I was there there were two stoppages which both lasted six months. At one time in 1948 they decided to strike for a lead bonus the same as they were getting at Mount Isa and Broken Hill. That took six months to resolve, although after the dispute had got underway there was a bit of a split in the thing. The Miners’ Federation came along and said that they could represent us better than the AWU and some of the them went with the Miners’ Federation and some wanted to stay with the AWU. So there was a definite split.
Who was the leader at that time, was it Bill Parkinson?
ND: Bill Parkinson would have been the leader of the Miners’ Federation, that’s right.
I have interviewed him. He is dead now.
ND: Have you. He was a terrific speaker too, a terrific bloke. One of the worst things that I can remember, at the end of the that strike when they had decided to return to work one accepted what was offered, after six months mind you, and the other didn’t. They both held a meeting in the park in the Captains Flat on that Sunday morning, one on either side of the park and after the meeting they met in the middle and fought it out, fist to fist. Mate fighting mate, brother fighting brother. It was a terrible blight on the place and it took years and years for the bad blood to heal there.
That is quite a story. I have never heard that before.
ND: People don’t remember, but in those days when that strike first started the unions knew that it was going to be a prolonged one. They asked single men to try and go to other areas and obtain work and send money back to the strike fund to keep the married men back at Captains Flat. They gave us all clearances to go. In actual fact three or four of us came to Wollongong and we had a letter to Bill Frame, who was the Secretary of the Labour Council in here then. He took us out to the works at Port Kembla and got us all jobs. You know we were actually on strike in one place but with the union’s acquiescence and prompting we were working down here. A lot of the young people, the single blokes were. Most of the married men were still back at the Flat. It went on for six months anyway.
That is what they should have done at Mount Isa. I was there.
ND: The funny thing, well it wasn’t funny at the time, but just as we returned to work, it must have been in 1949, the coal strike came on then and we were stood down then when we got back for another six or eight weeks. So we didn’t work very much at Captains Flat in that year.
Were you married at that time? No you were single.
ND: No I wasn’t married. I was single at the time, luckily. They were hard times but a good education in a way though.
Yes, Bill Parkinson felt, I think, pretty bitter about the miners’ strike. He felt they were badly let down. They had done all the right things all through the War and that it was about time they got their reward.
ND: Well it cost the Labor Party, the government didn’t it after that? That is when Menzies came in after Chifley got out of there because of that miners’ dispute.
He said it didn’t matter what party you belonged to, if you did the right thing by your people you should be given proper consideration. He said, ‘We have done the right thing up to now and now what are we getting.’
ND: That sounds fair enough, but that is all in the past isn’t it.
Well all right you have covered that period. Now back to the credit unions. Can you remember the inaugural meeting as opposed to the formation meeting?
ND: I can remember the inaugural meeting and we got the Charter. I know we had thirty-seven paid up members, who paid their shares. It would have been five pound then, of course it became ten dollars in 1966 with the decimal currency, but five pounds.
What was the name of the credit union then?
ND: It was called Illawarra County Council Staff Credit Union in those days. Started off with thirty-seven members with their share capital in. Of course it has grown to what it is today. We got our Charter from the Registrar in December 1964 and we opened for business on 1 January, or straight after the New Year break, in 1965. We just did it with voluntary work.
Did you get pay-roll deductions straight away?
ND: Yes, we always had pay-roll deductions. The County Clerk at the time, Max Sawyer, was all in favour of the credit union being formed and he offered us every assistance that he could. He granted pay-roll deductions. You know probably at the first meeting with Stan Arneil he granted that. So we always had pay-roll deductions. We used to do the work, the Directors, the Treasurer and the Secretary used to do the work. I well remember in the early days having to go into the County Council on a Saturday morning at the end of the month to sit down and manually work out the interest rates and putting them on the card. I guess there would have been a few mistakes in those days because none of us where anything like accountants or anything. We didn’t know too much about it, but that is how it had to be done.
When and where were you open for business?
ND: Well our office was a cardboard box actually under the desk of the Treasurer who worked in the office in the County Council. If you wanted to put any money in other than your pay-roll deductions, or get any out, you had to go up to his desk and he would rustle along in the cardboard box under the desk and come out with the book and we did it that way.
At any time?
ND: No not at any time. He used to have hours that he would be available there so that it didn’t upset his work schedule too much. It was a while afterwards before we first employed a part-time lady to work in the office and do the office work.
Was she still doing it manually?
ND: Yes, still doing it manually. Oh the Council did offer for us to have our books done on the Council’s accounting machine. The girls used to do it on the accounting machine. But the girls said they weren’t clerks and they didn’t work out any interests, they had to have something to copy. So we used to have to work out the interests and put everything down and they would transfer it from our handwritten records onto the members’ cards. Unfortunately, and I suppose it was fair enough, Council’s work always came first and ours had to wait until last and many times we would be six and eight weeks behind with our books.
You were fortnightly paid?
ND: We were fortnightly paid at the time yes. So we used to be in all sorts of trouble and it is probably just as well that we didn’t have a very big membership. But it was growing all the time and we seemed to get by.
What was the maximum loan in the first place?
ND: I think the first maximum we set was $40, or forty pound it might have been. But I can well remember the first few Credit Committee meetings when we had loan applications to consider, I remember how wary we were and how petrified we were of making a loan. We would be ringing around to see if they had any bad debts or dogs tied up at some of the big stores and things like that if we had our doubts. Our maximum was about $40 so we were very cautious in those days.
Can you remember who took out the first loan?
ND: Yes I can. Jim Stewart. I can remember later on that we wrote a bit of a history of the early days of the credit union up and we had a photo of Jim Stewart who was an employee of the County Council who lived at Gerringong borrowed the maximum to buy a washing machine, to finance a washing machine. That would have been our first loan.
Buying a washing machine for forty pounds.
ND: Yes, that was it.
What about your first bad debt? I mean you mustn’t say who it was I suppose?
ND: I wouldn’t probably know who it was but it was a matter of a great lot of pride for us all that our bad debt ratio was extremely low in those days. I think even with the modern times and the big money that is around today, I think the bad debt ratio is still quite low. But in those days our bad debt ratio was extremely low. I think we went ever so long, it might have been a couple of years or more, before we actually recorded our first bad debt that we had to write-off. That was a cause of some concern. In those days of course, when the membership was low, there was a lot of face-to-face contact with members, especially members coming for loans. You know they were all interviewed and told that they were borrowing their mate’s money and the lowest thing they could do is take the knock on your work mate and things like that. So there was a lot of amateur counselling going on in that fashion like that. I think anyone who did take the knock on their mates would have been either desperate or you know of a pretty low nature. I think that was one of the reasons why the bad debts were kept to a minimum, because of the face-to-face contact that we had with all of our members at the time.
Did you have any members who were a bit of a problem, drinkers and gamblers who needed a bit of counselling?
ND: Yes we did. We had several over the early years that we had to try and counsel. Not that probably they were through drugs or alcohol or anything like that. I think it was just no idea of managing money and I think in one particular case, that I can’t of course mention any names, but in one particular case it was the member’s wife who was the one who couldn’t manage money. She would go and buy things on the never-never and they were way above what they could afford to pay. We used to get them out of trouble, consolidate all their debts, given them another loan to pay it off. They would go all right for a little while, but as soon as they got back on their feet they would buy something else so it was a never-ending thing. It was just a real case of not being able to handle money, it wasn’t that they were really dishonest or had drug problems or anything like that. It was just that they couldn’t handle money.
Were there any problems from the finance companies and some of the companies that were pushing retail credit?
ND: Well in those early days there was of course. Even the banks and that were saying that we were only bits of fly-by-nighters and were amateurs trying to come into the banking situation and things like that. There were pretty sort of dirty remarks being made and people used to tell us that they were advised not to go to the credit union for a loan, to get it from the bank and all these sorts of things. That was only natural I suppose at the time. I can still remember in those early days where either fortunately or unfortunately the banks and that thought we were only a bit of a flash in the pan and we wouldn’t last long. But as the time went on and the credit unions started to prosper I think it brought the banks to the stage where they started to give service. I can remember clearly that if you wanted a loan from the banks in those early days you nearly had to prove that you didn’t really need it, you had enough collateral and one thing and another before they would grant it for ordinary things like that. But now they are out pushing personal loans and things like that. I think the credit union can take a lot of the credit for making the banks and others provide a better service.
When did you have your first dealings with the League, the New South Wales League? When did your credit union sign up and affiliate?
ND: Well right from the start. When Stan Arneil formed us, he of course I think at the time was President of the League. He said, ‘The first thing you must do is join the Credit Union League. We will set you up with your stationery and all the things that you will need to get started.’ So we really depended on the League right from the first to get all the stationery and all the things like that. So we joined the League right from day one.
So did you become involved in the argument that there was over which Stan lost his Presidency of the League? He was working for the Registrar as a Development Officer at the same time he was President of the League and a number of them thought he shouldn’t be doing that. So Don Harvey stood against him and won and Stan became Vice-President from then on. Can you remember that?
ND: I don’t actually remember it, but I remember something like that happened. I wasn’t involved with the League in those days other than that we were members of the League and that we used to attend the Annual Meeting.
Didn’t you have a vote?
ND: We didn’t have a vote. Oh we probably did, but I don’t actually remember that. I remember Don Harvey coming to the Chair in the League, yes.
Well that is why he stood.
ND: I think that would be right too.
He told me that. Anyway a number of other people told me as well.
ND: It would be true, yes.
Stan was very angry about that, I understand.
ND: Yes.
But you don’t know anything about that.
ND: No I don’t.
Right. So when did you first start to take an interest in League affairs?
ND: Well it must have been 1968. Let me go back a little bit there. My first introduction to the people who were involved with the League, like I am talking about Dermot Ryan and all those blokes, Jack Bannister and Owen Jones and the other fellows from County Council that died, what was his name, was up the coast that died?
Maurie Ryan?
ND: No. Maurie Ryan was another one. Anyway Stan Arneil recommended that we send a couple of people to the Newport School just after we had started our credit union. The fellow who was our first Chairman, his name was Bernie Cummerford, he only stayed in it for the first six months because he was President of the Woonona-Bulli RSL and he had plenty on his books up there.
Any relation to Jimmy Cummerford?
ND: No he wouldn’t be I don’t think.
End Tape 1A: 5042 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.
26 JULY 1990: ANSWCU71 RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO NEVILLE DANIELS
ND: As I was saying, Bernie Cummerford resigned to continue on with his Presidency of the RSL Club at Woonona. My brother Dudley filled the vacancy and came on to the Board at that point. As I was saying, the first contact I had with the Dermot Ryan’s and all of those was at the Newport School. My brother Dudley and I both attended that Newport School in 1965. Carlos Matos and ‘Compi’ were the main speakers there. I can always remember sitting in the School for the first two or three days wondering when they were going to start teaching us something. I thought we were going down there to learn how to do the day-to-day bit about how to run a credit union. The first two or three days was all spent on philosophy and it was only after I came home actually that I really realised what it was all about. I learnt the basis of the philosophy of the credit union there and they just pushed the philosophy. It wasn’t telling you how to fill out a card and run the credit union, so I think I got a good grounding in the philosophy from there. Of course rubbing shoulders with the Dermot Ryan’s and the Owen Jones’ and all of them of those days, Tommy Kelly’s and all of them. It was a good grounding into it too, I think I learnt more in that week than I learnt in the next long time.
Did you go to the Sydney City Council Hospitality Room, Room 19 in those days?
ND: Yes I did. Some funny things used to happen there. I can remember the first night I was in there we all, not all, but all the ones who were invited to go in there and I think everyone was always invited for a reason. If Dermot or someone had a point of view to put forward or they wanted to feel you out on something you would end up in Room 19 having a beer with them. I remember that Dermot and I almost came to blows the first time we met over a silly argument about unions. I was shop steward of the ETU here in Wollongong and he of course was with the Municipal and Shires Union in Sydney. He was making statements that their union was the only one that supported credit unions in any shape or form and the ETU had nothing to do with it, and one thing an another, you know. With the few beers we both had in it almost came to a stand-up fight. But right from that point on I considered Dermot Ryan and myself to be the best of friends. I think Dermot was the best friend I ever had in the credit union movement.
Is there anybody else you can remember from that first Newport School? Was Father Ganey at that one or not?
ND: No I don’t think Father Ganey was there.
No he was at the 1966 one.
ND: No Father Ganey wasn’t there, but ‘Compi’ and Carlos Matos. Carlos is another man that I admire very much from the early days, him and his wife and I can’t recall his wife’s name now. They were a tremendous couple and had a big influence on me as far as the credit union went. In the early days Stan Arneil for his exuberance and confidence in everything he did had a big influence on me. I think Dermot Ryan and Kooka from the ABC and Kenny Miller and Les Robinson in later years.
Who from the ABC, Clarrie Stewart?
ND: Clarrie Stewart, Kooka we used to call him Kookaburra, yes, Clarrie Stewart. I was fortunate enough that after I joined the League, and I have jumped up a bit there as to how I got on to the League Board so I might leave that for a minute, but I will talk about Kooka again when we get to there.
What other Schools did you attend?
ND: Well we had a Chapter going and we used to have bits of Schools around the Chapters and things like that.
Do you remember how the Chapter started?
ND: Yes, I remember Ron Hamilton, from our credit union, and Jeanette Newsome and myself, I think we were the main ones who were anxious to get a Chapter going down here from our credit union. Of course there were people from the City Council Credit Union also I can remember and Huntley Colliery, Bert Bampton from Huntley Colliery Credit Union. We were on to get a Chapter going. Again because of what Arneil had told us, that we should get one going and things like that. But I can remember Clarrie Murphy, who was the League Secretary or Manager in those days, and Lee Nash, two fellows who used to come down here of a night and we used to get a room in the Normandy Motel in North Wollongong. They would come down and there might be eight or ten of us at a Chapter meeting and they persevered until we got the Chapter going to where we had the strongest Chapter in New South Wales here in Wollongong. Much through the work of Ron Hamilton and Jeanette Newsome, they were President and Secretary respectively. Our Chapter became one of the strongest in New South Wales and we actually sought permission to run an AFCUL Conference here in Wollongong and the Chapter organised that. That was a culmination I think of the Chapter down here, we actually was host to the AFCUL Conference.
Do you remember what year that was?
ND: I can’t off-hand. I would have to look up some of my memorabilia.
Was it at the Berkeley?
ND: At the Berkeley Centre, the year it opened. We were the first conference held in the Berkeley.
Wasn’t that the disastrous one when the insurance split happened.
ND: That’s right. That was right on the times when the insurance fight was on. I can remember Stan Arneil coming to the conference and I think he was declined the right to address us, or something like that. It was a real blow-up there. There wasn’t any untoward scene or anything but it was pretty sticky at the time.
Yes, well that is a bit later isn’t it, because you got on to the League Board before that. Wait a minute, as far as the Chapter is concerned do you remember was there the involvement of the League Chapter Co-ordination and Development Committee at all? Owen Jones was the Secretary.
ND: Well Owen Jones used to play a big part in it. He used to come down with them. He used to come down. I can also remember that we used invite representatives from the steel works credit unions and those who weren’t members of the League to the Chapter meetings. We were always trying to get them interested. Jimmy Wardell and Tommy Hanson and those fellows, to see if they would join the League. We weren’t successful in those days, but I understand now that it is all one big happy family and I think that’s the way it should be of course.
I have got news for you.
ND: Oh yes.
It has happened again.
ND: It has happened again? Oh well I wouldn’t be surprised. It is a pity that we can’t all be one big strong movement. I remember it must have been in 1968 that Mick Hennessy from Wollongong City Council Credit Union was what they called in those days what they called a Country Director, one of two Country Directors, on the New South Wales League Board. Mick Hennessy was a Country Director and he was leaving Wollongong to take up a business up in Queensland. He asked me would I like to fill the vacancy when he pulled off the League Board. I agreed to it and I filled the casual vacancy when Mick left in 1968 and then became a League Board Member. I stayed on the League Board until I think it must have been about 1974 or 1975.
Yes that’s right. I have got Mick Hennessy down from 1966 to 1968 and you are down 1968 to 1972. It mightn’t be right. In actual fact this was taken off the Annual Reports so there could be an extra year.
ND: Yes I think it would have been a little bit longer. It was either 1973 or 1974. I became involved then with the League of course and from there on I was very involved.
Was it hard going up to Board meetings?
ND: It was. I used to work all-day shift and the Board meetings used to start at Burwood at six o’clock.
Where was the building then? The League office then?
ND: It was in a building up near the Hume Highway on the left-hand side going up in Burwood Road. I can’t think of the name of the building, but it was only rented premises. Long before they went down to their new building of course. We used to go up there and had to be there by six o’clock and I used not to knock off work here in Wollongong until four o’clock. I used to rip home, have a bite to eat on the run sort of thing, and be up to Sydney for the Board meetings. Many a time I wouldn’t get home until two o’clock in the morning. I can remember my children were only quite small then, school age, and my wife Barbara and the children sometimes would come with me. They would go to the pictures in Burwood while I went to the meeting and they would sit out in the car out in the street until one o’clock in the morning sometimes before I would get out to come home. So they had quite a bit to put up with as well. I didn’t used to mind it at the time, but I have thought a lot since about how I kept it going, to get up there, because it was certainly a rush.
What were the main issues at first when you started in 1968?
ND: Well the first big issue I can remember was the insurance bit of course. But I was very fortunate I only joined the League Board in 1968 and when they elected the four delegates to represent the New South Wales League at the Detroit CUNA International Conference in 1969, I was one of the four elected. There was Dermot Ryan, Tommy Kelly, Ray Cooper and myself representing New South Wales. We went over and that was the meeting where they decided to form the World Council of Credit Unions. It was a very important meeting. That of course was taking up a lot of the thoughts of the League at the time, you know to switch from CUNA International and make it a World Council. That would have meant rather than each State having delegates go to the international meeting, that Australia would be the representative and Australia would send delegates, not each State, as they did in those days. So there was plenty of debate about the World Council. That would have been one of the main topics. In my time in the League of course there was the World Council being formed, there was the big split over the insurance dispute and of course centralised banking. Les Robinson was very heavily involved with getting centralised banking. They all happened during the time I was on the League Board. They were all very big issues.
What about the appointment of Les Robinson as Secretary? Were you involved in that at all? As Secretary-Manager.
ND: I believe that Les would have been Secretary-Manager when I first went on to the League Board. I don’t think I had anything to do with him being appointed. I well remember the effort and time and the expertise that Les Robinson used to put in. You know I think personally that the credit union movement has got a hell of a lot to thank Les Robinson for, for the efforts and that that he put into the job when he was Manager of the League, particularly with the centralised banking and insurance and things like that. They were hectic days and must have had a big bearing on the future of the credit unions.
Did your credit union and yourself stick by the League through the insurance and the centralised banking?
ND: Yes, we did. I would have been made to look a bit of a dill probably if we hadn’t, because I was Chairman of my own credit union and also on the League Board.
Some people did get put in that position.
ND: I know. It was pretty sticky. But you know our credit union was very pro the League all the way and still are.
Were you ever invited to join the Southern Association? Can you remember the setting up of the Southern Association of Credit Unions?
ND: I can vaguely remember it. I think the Association was set up actually before we started our credit union. So I think they were a going concern either formally or informally before we even got started. We were asked to join, invited to some of their conferences and meetings and invited to join. Of course we were hearing the other side of the story from the League, you know Arneil. I think really the main stumbling block was a personality clash between Stan Arneil and Tommy Hanson. I think in the early days that was the main drawback, it really started off as a personality clash and it took a lot of overcoming.
What about the dues issue?
ND: Well they used to often criticise the amount of the dues that the League asked for and I know that they looked a bit dimly on delegates rushing off to America to CUNA International conferences and things like that. But still I think the forward thinking of the League and what they learnt from their contact with the overseas movement I think justified what they were doing there. I think the League was the leader, far in advance of ever what the Southern Association was not only in size but in moving the credit unions forward and the forward thinking of the credit unions, particularly with legislation and things like that.
Of course you were around here when Clarrie Murphy came down here to work for a while.
ND: Yes I don’t remember too much about what he was doing, but I do remember him working around this way.
It was on insurance wasn’t it? The CIC.
ND: Yes he was working on insurance, yes. We weren’t dealing with him anyway, we weren’t dealing with them. I saw Clarrie Murphy at Dermot’s funeral, that was the last time I saw him, but I still admire old Clarrie because he is one of the pioneers. He did a hell of a lot in the early days and I know that he did a lot to assist us when we were first starting off our credit union and the Chapter. He did a lot of good work.
Well he is still active because he is active in the Historical Co-operative, the Credit Union Historical Co-operative. The main active people at the present moment are Tom Kelly, who is the President, and Clarrie Murphy. They are the two that come in every Tuesday and Thursday and they are cataloguing all the stuff they have got and generally working at it. Also Clarrie is doing interviewing as well.
ND: I am pleased to hear that because he was one of the real pioneers and it would be a shame if we lost him out of the movement.
Oh no he is still active. He is there every Tuesday and Thursday just about.
ND: That’s terrific, that’s good.
He is doing some interviewing that is very effective too. I mean he has got Dave Palmer to do in the next few weeks.
ND: I remember Dave Palmer well.
Do you remember the controversy there was when Dave Palmer criticised the Board’s handling of meetings?
ND: I think I do. There were quite a few hectic meetings, particularly Annual Meetings, of the Board and things like that, not of the Board but of the League. There was always plenty of fire at those meetings.
Dave Palmer was the main active member of the Supervisory Committee of the League at that time.
ND: Yes that would have been right. But Dave always was keen to put his point of view forward. If he didn’t think things were right he used to get up and say it.
Dermot didn’t like it.
ND: No. Well Dermot always had his say too. I think Dermot had more influence on it than Dave did actually.
Well he lost his position on the Supervisory Committee that year actually.
ND: Oh did he? I don’t remember that, but it could be true.
It was. Let me ask you another one. What about your actual going overseas. It must have been quite a decision to actually go when you got elected, or did you put yourself up and expect to go?
ND: No I didn’t put myself up. I was nominated at the Board meeting. It went to a vote of course and I was one of the four that got the votes. It was a big thing for me because it meant leaving my wife and a young family behind. Getting the time off from work to go. I must say that again Max Sawyer and the men at work were very sympathetic and very honoured that I was selected to go. I was away for six weeks and they granted me three weeks special leave on full pay to go. I had to take the rest as leave of my own. It was quite a decision but it was too big of a momentous thing to think about knocking back. It was once in a lifetime chance. I remember at the time it was only a extra $100 between what I was entitled to to get my fare paid to America and return and to buy a round the world ticket. I know Ray Cooper both put in our $100 and bought round the world tickets. When we had finished our commitments in America we flew on a flying trip to London and Rome and Hong Kong and that on the way home. So I actually had a quick trip around the world. You know it is something that was a once in a lifetime chance. Other than that, the people that I met on that trip and the things that I saw had a lasting impression on me. On the way over Dermot and Tommy Kelly, Graham Benson and a couple of others from Victoria as well as Jack Ryan from Canberra we called in at Fiji on the way over and had a few days in Fiji. At the time that we were there Marion Gregory and Paul Dayton from CUNA Mutual were there. CUNA Mutual had advanced a lot of money to get the Bergengren Teaching School started. The particular weekend we were there there was a ceremony to turn the first sod of the School. I have still got some photos of Dermot and I at that ceremony. It is a matter of great pride. It was all the more a source of pride in later years. I went over on a private holiday and I was able to go back to the Bergengren School and see Father Ganey in session with a full School of Islanders, teaching them about credit unions. I felt very humble at the welcome that Father Ganey gave me in front of the class the day that I went there. He explained to them that I was at the ceremony where they first started the School and that the New South Wales League had done a lot to support and get the School started. I was treated like something of note, which I really wasn’t, but I was made to feel very, very welcome. Father Ganey of course was such a remarkable person and such a sincere and good orator that you always felt at home in his company wherever you were because he could make everyone feel that they were welcome. That was one of the greatest things of later years, to go back and see the Fiji League again. Of course we have lost Father Ganey now and also Joe Roto, who was the Manager of the League in Fiji at that time. He was a terrific person, but he died prematurely as well. So we have lost two great stalwarts of the credit union in that area. Joane Naisara of course I had met many years earlier, in my early days with the credit union. I remember Joane Naisara being in Sydney and I went to a show at Mosman and met Joane Naisara and always had a lot of time for him.

Other than the Fiji one, we went on then to Honolulu and we spent three days with a credit union Manager and his people in Honolulu looking around his credit union. I can’t actually think of what his name was now, but Dermot told me to pronounce it KO Kahili. He had an Hawaiian sort of a name but his told me to pronounce it KO Kahili, that is how he used to say it. He was a terrific person and he took us around and showed us a lot of their credit union work. Then of course we got on to the conference in Detroit where there were people from all over the world that we met. We were trying to do a bit of wheeling and dealing about the World Council and we were having breakfast meetings with the likes of Rod Glenn and those blokes who were the leaders over there in those days to find out what we could about it. What was going on. Of course I think at the same time the insurance dispute was really on and I think we were doing a bit of homework over there trying to get a point of view across. So it was a very exciting time. Dick Robertson was the CUNA International President in those days. We had plenty of time with him, he was a very likeable sort of a fellow. Owen Schripe of course, they all treated us very well. They talk about Yanks abroad and one thing and another, but Americans at home are most hospitable people. Owen Schripe took us to his home and looked after us. Carlos Matos took us to his home. They couldn’t do enough for us. It was really something out of the box. After the conference was over we were then the guest of the Michigan Credit Union League for a few days. It was really an eye-opener to see where they were, because they were many, many years ahead of what the Australian movement was in those days. I can remember, we were talking about the Historical Society, I can remember at the same time they were spending a lot of money trying to get their history of their early days together. They had been going for quite a long time, probably eighty years or more at that stage. A lot of the pioneers were gone. They were trying to get a recorded history together. I remember coming back home and recommending that we should start doing that then before we got to the stage where they were with pioneers starting to die out. The other big thing they had over there in those days was on-line computers, they had their member credit unions on on-line computers in those days, 1969. One of the other things that struck me was what they called line of credit, or on-line loans where you only had to establish your credibility and then you had a credit of up to so many hundreds of dollars. All you had to do was go and make out a form and get the loan instead of having to make an application and have it approved every time. I recommended that to the League at the time. But the Registrar of the day, and I can’t remember his name now but it will probably come back to me later, he said that we wouldn’t have been in the race in those days to get that through the Registrar’s Office. That only came in in latter years but it has been a terrific boost too. Other delegates that were more into computers and things than I was, I wasn’t an office worker I was an outside worker of course a blue collar worker and I wasn’t too far into computers and things, they made their reports on the wonders of the computers and computer systems and things like that, which was fair enough. They were all wonderful of course and they were the two things that struck me at the time. Then after we left there after the meetings Ray and I went on then to Washington and New York and across to London. Then across to Rome. While we were in Rome we had a meeting with the World Health Organisation people in Rome and talked about the wonders of credit unions to them. There were no credit unions there then. We didn’t get very far with them but they gave us a good hearing. I never heard whether anything ever came of it. I left Ray Cooper and I flew on to Hong Kong. In Detroit I had met the Manager of the Hong Kong Credit Union League, his name was Andrew So. He was only a little Chinese fellow, very capable and a very well-spoken man. I told him I was going to be in Hong Kong on the way home and he said, ‘Well I will meet you and I will book you in somewhere.’ I had three days in Hong Kong and I was with Andrew So for the three days. He actually took me to a formation meeting where he was forming a credit union I think in some department, I can’t think now whether it was Customs or something like that. I actually addressed a meeting of prospective members there through an interpreter there in Hong Kong about credit unions in Australia and the benefits of credit unions and things. I went to some of those resettlement areas with him and in some of those big blocks of housing that they have they actually had credit unions in each one of those. So many people lived in them they actually had credit unions. They used to have their meetings about ten o’clock at night.
End Tape 1B: 4519 Words: 1 hour 50 minutes.
26 JULY 1990: ANSWCU72: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO NEVILLE DANIELS
You were talking about Hong Kong.
ND: Yes I was talking about these credit union meetings in Hong Kong. They used to work sixteen hour days and hold their meetings after ten o’clock at night. I remember the Hilton Hotel, Andrew also took me there. They had their own credit union, about two thousand employees at that hotel, the Hong Kong Hilton. They had their own credit union there. I also remember Andrew taking me to a meeting where he was forming a credit union, it was some government type of department and he asked me to address the meeting and tell them about credit unions and credit unions in Australia, so I actually did it with Andrew interpreting for me because they were a Chinese audience. I have got a lot of good memories of all of those things. I think the exposure to all those different people and that was something that influenced me and remained with me for the rest of my life.
When you went on that trip, was that the trip that Dermot was doing a bit of playing up? Was that the one that somebody cornered him to drink a yard of ale?
ND: Oh yes. Well we used to always have a few drinks and one thing and another, but Dermot was always renowned for being a pretty good drinker. I remember we were in this bar in the Hilton Hotel in Detroit. Of course it was a high class hotel where they had numerous bars, but we happened to be in this one this day having a drink and Dermot had been in America previously and he had drunk a yard of beer before. There was a yard glass on a stand behind the bar and he was showing me the glass and the bar tender was all flashily dressed and a very suave sort of a fellow, he said, ‘Would you like to try one Sir?’ Dermot said, ‘I will have a go at it if you like.’ He got it down and you could see them sort of running around to all their own regulars saying that this silly bloke was going to have a go at drinking this yard of beer. So they filled it up and I had to hold the bowl end of it up for Dermot. Dermot after a while got through this yard of beer. There was much cheering and handclapping from all the amazed people about. Dermot let a big burp out of him when he had finished and he said, ‘Now get me a cold beer.’ He immediately asked for another glass of cold beer and carried on drinking. I think they thought he was some sort of a super human. In America of course they don’t drink beer like we drink beer, they will have a couple of beers then switch on to some bourbon or something like that. It is unheard of them to sit for two or three hours or so drinking beer like we used to.
Of course there is a trick to drinking a yard of ale, apart from being able to drink a lot. You can end up with it all over you if you are not careful.
ND: Oh yes, that is it. If you tip it up the big bowl is down the end, if you tip it too fast you are going to get a wash with it.
Apparently Dermot had seen somebody drinking one in the Hero of Waterloo before he came over.
ND: He knew about it anyway. He didn’t fail us, he carried on with it. That is just one of the sidelights of the trip.
Now when you got back, that was 1969. At that time I think the CUNA Mutual-CUMIS came to Australia and Stan Arneil was appointed as Manager.
ND: Yes that’s right. That caused a lot of heartache and a big split and one thing and another. It took years and years really for the personalities to sort of cool down and get over it. I don’t know whether its fully healed yet. I haven’t been involved for a long time now. I think it was a great pity, but I think it was also something that had to happen. It was a business thing in the finish, a business decision. The League Board felt at the time, or the majority of the League Board felt at the time that it wasn’t the best thing for the Australian movement and that is how it went.
In the first instance when CUMIS was first appointed as insurer for the loan protection insurance, I think, and the bond, you took that straight away through the League did you?
ND: Yes we did. We took loan protection straight away through the League. I think one of the things that was a matter of discussion at the time they also had as well as the loan insurance they had the savings insurance as well. There was a lot of talk about how it could be dickered and one thing and another. Giving them loans to put in their savings and then while they are on their death bed. Of course if you give someone a $10,000 loan and he dies he doesn’t have to repay the loan and he gets his savings doubled. So you are handing out money left, right and centre. It was open to a lot of unsavoury sort of things if you let it happen. I must also say in defence of CUNA Mutual, you know, I knew some of the personalities as I mentioned before I knew Marion Gregory and Paul Dayton. I think at the time I knew Paul Dayton he was President of CUNA Mutual. When we were in Madison after the conference in Detroit we went to Madison to be with CUNA and we also visited the CUNA Mutual establishment in Madison. Of course they were very hospitable people and couldn’t do enough for us. So I have got no personal grudges against the personalities, although I was involved at the time with the dispute here in Australia.
Were you at the meeting when the insurance issue came to a head? When it was announced that the Board recommended that the CUNA Mutual and CUMIS be dropped as insurers for the league. They asked the meeting to allow them to go and see if they could find another insurer. Were you at that meeting?
ND: I would have been at that meeting. I can remember it, but I don’t remember too much detail about it now. But I was there.
Do you remember where it was?
ND: I think it would have been in the University Round House.
The first one I think was in the Round House and the second one when they came back and announced that they had a new insurer, that they had succeeded, was in the Unisearch House I think.
ND: Yes, that would be right too. Unisearch House, that’s right.
I believe there were two separate meetings. One when they put it to the meeting and got permission, that was the one that the split actually happened at I think. The second one was when they came home with the bacon, so to speak.
ND: Yes that would be right. I have sort of forgotten a lot of the detail about it now because I have been out of it getting on for eighteen to twenty years. That is a good while ago now.
But the thing about the two meetings is that the first weekend meeting was at the University of New South Wales there and the following weekend was your one down here, at AFCUL.
ND: That’s right. Well I certainly remember the AFCUL meeting. We were very cock-a-hoop about the fact that we were hosting that AFCUL meeting away from the capital city. We actually went to the AFCUL meeting in Warburton the year before and sort of prevailed on Graham Benson, who was President of AFCUL at the time, that he ought to hold the next one in Wollongong not in Sydney. They were thinking about holding it in Sydney and we convinced him that we could run it just as well in Wollongong. As it turned out we did. We had the meeting at the Berkeley Centre and that was actually the first conference that was held in that Centre. It was built especially to hold conferences but I think it was a good few years before its time and it wasn’t able to make it as a viable business as a conference centre. But we were really given the red carpet there because they wanted to prove what a good show it was and that. We thought that it was an extraordinarily good conference. But that is true, it was right in the middle of the split. I know that there was some animosity there when Stan Arneil turned up at the conference. I think from memory he was refused permission to speak at the meeting and I think he left in a bit of a huff. That is one of the sadder sides of the whole story.
Do you remember the meeting at the University of New South Wales when the split actually happened, Stan Arneil spoke at one stage didn’t he?
ND: I can’t remember any detail now about that. I think he would have spoken. He certainly would have spoken. I am trying to think, there was someone else later than Stan who was working for CUNA Mutual as well. Who was that? That was John?
Was it the present Manager, John Granada?
ND: No. I can’t remember his name. He was an ex-League fellow and he was appointed to be the Australian representative before Stan I think, or about the same time.
Not Tommy Ryan?
ND: No. Tommy Ryan it was, that’s right.
Well that was the South Pacific representative of CUNA.
ND: He was originally appointed to service Australia, but then they made it a South Pacific thing and he spent most of his time outside of Australia.
They wouldn’t accept him would they?
ND: No. Well that was right, he wasn’t acceptable either. I can remember all that furore going on.
Where was that meeting?
ND: Well I can’t remember now where that was, but I remember all about it. I think the year that I was in 1969 when I went to America I think Tom Ryan was over there at that time. He was a representative of CUNA then. Tommy Ryan.
There are so many of them. There is Maurie Ryan, Tommy Ryan.
ND: Yes. Maurie Ryan, Dermot Ryan, Tommy Ryan, all of those.
You mentioned Jack Lange. There is me thinking about Dermot’s son, because he works for Lange.
ND: Yes well I have got a great lot of admiration of course for Jack Lange both as a man and for the work that he has done for the credit union movement. I remember in the early days when I was speaking earlier about the Chapter in Wollongong, Jack Lange used to often come to our Chapter meetings in Wollongong as our guest speaker and other things. He used to tell us that he had a soft spot for Wollongong because I think that is where he met his wife. I think she was originally a Wollongong lady. Going right back to those early days of the movement down here, Jack Lange was a force and a big help in the movement then. I have nothing but admiration for him. He has been a terrific man and a terrific man for the credit union.
Do you remember the battle for mutuality, in order to establish mutuality in the first instance, the court cases? Did Jack Lange advise you on that at all?
ND: Well I remember all the talk about it and that. Jack Lange would have been telling us all about that in those days. I remember all that. I don’t remember any fine detail about it now, but I remember the time, yes.
Did you change your rules at that time?
ND: Yes. I think most of the credit unions did.
But it wasn’t successful.
ND: No.
They had to do it politically.
ND: Yes. They had to do it politically. That is where I think, not taking away from anyone else, but I think as far as a politician went I think old Dermot was the daddy of them all as far as the politics of the thing went. I don’t think he had any equal in the credit union movement as a politician.
He did have a bit of help from Vince Martin.
ND: Oh yes. Well we had Vince Martin who was in the right position at the right time. Of course Vince did a hell of a lot of good work for us there too. I was honoured to be sitting on the Credit Union League Board at the same time as Vince Martin. I knew him very well and knew of a lot of the good work that he done for the movement as well. But for a fellow who wasn’t in politics really Dermot Ryan knew more about politics, I think, than most others had forgotten. He was a born politician, should have been a Member of Parliament.
Do you remember some of the things he used to say about politics?
ND: Oh God knows now. I just can’t bring any of them to mind. But he used to be a funny man with politics and politicians. But when he went to work for the Federation of course and was getting recognition for the savings grant and things like that in Canberra, he did a lot of work then with politicians, getting a lot of things through. I also followed Dermot. Dermot was on the New South Wales Government Advisory Committee for a fairly long time.
The Credit Union Advisory Committee?
ND: Yes the Credit Union Advisory Committee for the Government, you know. When he retired I was appointed to fill the vacancy. I had three years on the Advisory Committee as well. I remember the Minister at the time was old Steppa Stevens. He was a blind man who came from New England. I can’t even think what his first name was now. In our early days down here, when we would have an Annual Meeting of our own credit union I always used to try and get a guest speaker that was a bit out of the ordinary for down here. I remember that one time I got the Minister, Steppa Stevens came down. Also I remember once I got Sid Einfeld to come down. They were bits of scoops because no other meetings around here were able to get those blokes in those days. I have had a lot of exposure to some good people and they have had a big influence on what I think of the credit union and things like that.
When you were on the Advisory Committee was that when you were moving towards trying to get the Reserve Board set up?
ND: Yes, the Reserve Board. But also we were trying to get permission for cash withdrawals. If you remember in the early days of the credit union you could only pay withdrawals and that by cheque. I know down here that was a stumbling block when we first kicked off because some one would come on a Friday afternoon and want to make a withdrawal and you would have to give him a cheque. You know it might be $50 or so, but then because he didn’t have a bank account he wasn’t able to cash it. He would come back then on whingeing on Monday that he got the cheque all right by it was no good to him, he couldn’t cash it anywhere. So when I was on the Advisory Committee that is when we were in the midst of trying to get approval for cash withdrawals. That finally came about. We started off with a fairly meagre maximum withdrawal in cash at that. I know at the time Tommy Hanson, who I spoke about earlier, was on the Advisory Committee at the time and he wasn’t in favour of cash withdrawals. He reckoned his members at the steel works never asked for cash, they were quite happy to get a cheque. I doubt that because I can’t see where a fellow working for the steel works would be any different to a fellow working at the County Council, they would still have the same problem. I think it would be more likely that the credit union didn’t want cash withdrawals because of the different difficulties that it brought in, handling the cash and things like that. He wasn’t all that supportive of cash withdrawals at the time.
I heard that some people weren’t in favour of them because some people were in the business of cashing cheques.
ND: Yes well we used to have to go different business houses and hotels in those early days and make some sort of an agreement with them that they would cash our cheques up to a certain amount for our fellows, for our members. It wasn’t a very good set-up because you know if you were a regular drinker at the Coniston Hotel they could go from the County Council up to the Coniston and cash a cheque. But if you weren’t God knows where you would get it cashed on a Friday afternoon because the banks had closed. Unless they wanted to pay a business house a bill or something they couldn’t cash it and get the cash in their hand.
Nearly as bad as the old cash orders.
ND: That’s right.
Did they have any trouble with cash orders down this way?
ND: I remember before the credit union started that cash orders and that were all the go. I can remember when I first started work at the County Council I worked at the Bulli Depot and the cash order bloke used to come around and blokes used to borrow ten pounds and pay it back in ten pay-days. In actual fact they would pay it back a pound at a time over ten pay-days, but you paid the first one the first day, so you never actually got the ten pound you got nine because you paid the first one back. They used to have them going all the time. They were forever paying it back. So if you worked out the interest rate on that I reckon it would have been pretty high the way they used to run it.
I was a sailor years ago in England and it was the regular thing. When you joined a ship if you wanted an advance to start you off they used to give you a cash order. Of course you had to pay a discount to get it cashed. You had to go to a certain place, approved slop shops or whatever you like to call it.
ND: Well I do know that when the credit union started that was one of the big benefits that the County Clerk and that used to tell us that the credit union did for them, it stopped a lot of blokes getting subs of their wages. On the back-pay week when it was fortnightly pay there used to be the regular fellows who used to come for a sub of their wages on the back week. When the credit unions started of course, they used to come to us and withdraw some of the savings they had put there. The would put some of their money into the credit union on pay-day but they would probably pull it out again, some of them, by next pay-day. It used to save the Council with subs on their wages and they thought that was pretty good because we were doing a bit of their work there.
So were you involved with the Savings Protection Fund, the setting up of that?
ND: Yes. Well that all came through that era that I was on the Board and on the Advisory Committee. The Savings Protection Fund that all happened in them days, yes.
When you were on the Advisory Committee can you remember who else was on at that time?
ND: There was Ken Miller, I know, Tommy Hanson for a time. I know David Horton was the Registrar and of course Charlie Butler was the Assistant. I can’t just bring the name of the Registrar prior to David Horton, but he was the Registrar when I first went on there. He did some work for the credit union movement after he retired as Registrar and he was instrumental, with Dermot and them, of bringing about the Credit Union Act. He did a lot of work for us in writing the Credit Union Act.
That was before 1969.
ND: He was there before, yes that is right.
Incidentally, were you involved in that at all? The work on writing the Act?
ND: No not actually directly involved. I remember it all going on.
You were in the Labor Party, were you involved in lobbying there?
ND: Oh we used to do our bit of lobbying around there. That is where we used to try and do a bit and knock some of the knockers. We were hearing bad reports from other organisations knocking the credit unions and we used to try and give it a bit of a push through the ALP Branches and things like that, yes.
You had a position on the local branch did you?
ND: Yes. I used to belong to the Corrimal Branch of the Australian Labor Party and I served a few years there as President of the Corrimal Branch. I actually joined the Labor Party before I left Captains Flat, way back prior to 1954. But I didn’t join it immediately after coming down here, I joined it in later years, a few years later. There was a bit of a gap in between so I didn’t have continuous membership. But I was a member for a lot of years down here. I am not presently a member of it, I just let is slip.
For some reason I went to the Labor Party Annual Conference just a few weeks ago and I interviewed Vince Martin up at his place at Woy Woy. The following day I was at the Conference and he was getting his life membership.
ND: Was he. Oh that was great. Good for him.
I think one of the reasons is because the new Assistant Secretary, John de la Bosco, is from up there.
ND: We had a great old supporter in Wollongong of the credit union movement too in old Rex Connor, R F X Connor. He was a good man for the credit union and he used to assist us a lot. I think Dermot was pretty well known to old Rex as well. He was a good man for the credit union on the Labor side.
Were you involved in the Labor Party when old Rex Connor was in trouble in the latter years of the Labor Government?
ND: No. I was still a member of the Party but I didn’t hold office in those days. That was in the latter years of my membership of the Party.
So what were the other issues that were involved. Schools you ran Schools. Is the local Chapter operating down here or not?
ND: I don’t really think it is. No I don’t think so.
During the period of the times when there were a lot of mergers and credit unions in trouble, did you have any credit unions down here in trouble that you had to get mergers organised?
ND: Yes well the Illawarra County Council Credit Union actually, not because they were in trouble, merged with the Wollongong City Council Credit Union and changed their name to Southern Counties Credit Union. That was after I finished being on the Board then. See Illawarra County Council itself actually was amalgamated with Shoalhaven Shire Electricity Board and the Berrima County Council and the Bega Valley County Council. As soon as that happened we merged the credit unions in those areas, or tried to. Our bond actually extended into those areas. I know there is still a credit union at Berrima, a very strong credit union, Berrima Credit Union.
Have you had anything to do with Ken Byrne have you?
ND: Yes I have known Ken Byrne. I knew Ken Byrne when he was Sydney and when I was on the League Board and that. Yes I know Ken Byrne. Col McKew is a long time member of the Berrima Credit Union as well. I have known him for a lot of years. The Manager up there before Ken Byrne used to be a chap called Richards, I can’t think of his first name now, Tom Richards, Tom Richards, that’s right. So when the County Council amalgamated, our bond sort of extended. Employees were then spread over the south-eastern area so as well as amalgamating with the Wollongong City Council Credit Union they took in the Port Kembla Hospital Credit Union, which wasn’t travelling too well, they joined as well. I think a couple of the small ones down the coast as well joined in. Now it is a big credit union with a fairly large area and a pretty big bond. It is going like wildfire. I think one of the best things I did during my term of office as President was we had the foresight to decide to appoint a full-time Manager and I think first go we appointed a very fine one in Bob Lamond. That is a matter of great satisfaction to me that I was instrumental in having Bob Lamond make application for the job and eventually he was appointed. He has been a very fine Manager.
Were any of the credit unions round here pushed into the Common Board at any time or was the administrator appointed around here?
ND: Not that I can recall. I don’t think any of them went bad. But some of them amalgamated of course. The Collieries Employees Credit Unions amalgamated with Southern Mutual and then they became known as the Illawarra Credit Union, a very large and successful credit union. I don’t recall any that were forced to merge.
What about computerisation, where you involved at any stage at the League on computerisation there or down here?
ND: I know a bit about our own situation now and it is quite amusing to think back on it. I remember as I said earlier that the Council used to do our accounting on their accounting machines, manually on their accounting machines. That was before the Council itself had a computer. When they went to computer they invited us to go on computer with them. After getting some advice and that from people who thought they knew a bit about computers and some probably didn’t know too much, we made a momentous decision that we wouldn’t accept their offer to go on computer because we reckoned there would be too many holdups and too many teething problems. So we actually bought one of their old accounting machines and employed a girl to do our accounting on the machine.
End Tape 2A: 4602 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.
26 JULY 1990: ANSWCU72: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO NEVILLE DANIELS
You were talking about the accounting.
ND: Yes I was talking about the computer when the County Council itself decided to computerise and give away the accounting machines they offered for us to have a program and go on their computer. But we had had such a bad experience with their accounting machines being sometimes six to eight weeks behind that we were too afraid to go on the computer. So instead we bought one of the old machines they were throwing out and employed a girl to do our own accounting. It wasn’t until some years after that they turned to computer and bought a computer of their own. Of course they are now on computer and we all know the wonders of what the computer has done for us since then. In the early days we were very sceptical about it. Going back to when Ken Furness was our first Treasurer, he was an ex-Commonwealth Bank man. We started off with the penny in the pound per month sort of thing. Then when decimal currency came in he said, ‘This is easy, it was one per cent one per month. You’ve have only got to alter the decimal point a couple of steps back and you have got it worked out. It is not hard to work out.’ But on the interest rate he had the old formula that there were so many days in the month and you used to have to multiply the figure. You had to find first of all the minimum balance for the month then multiply it by so many days and multiply it by something else and then come up with the figure. They used to tell us that one per cent a month was easy to work out. I worked it out that if that was one per cent a month for that and your interest on your savings was about half of that, it was half a per cent a month. That is how we used to end up doing it in those days when we used to do it by hand. But I guess there was quite a few inaccuracies in the accounts but no one had that much money in there in those days and it wasn’t a great deciding factor.
Accountants like Ken Byrne and Bob Monahan have told me that was all wrong in fact. That was not the right thing at all. It wouldn’t come out right.
ND: No, it probably didn’t. But we got away with it at the time anyway until we got on to bigger things and was able to employ someone to do it for us.
Some credit unions, I understand, actually got themselves in big trouble by using that method.
ND: They probably did.
They didn’t have an accountant looking over their shoulder.
ND: Well I know we used to get into trouble with the Registrar and that when they used to send their inspectors around. We were say six weeks behind with our cards and people would get overdrawn. We never had a proper balance and they would get overdrawn. We would have so many overdrawn accounts that the inspectors used to tear their hair out. They would say, ‘These are actually unapproved loans you are giving these people, they are all in debt. They haven’t been approved.’ We used to get into trouble because we were overdrawn. They were the hassles that we had in the early days. Luckily we came through without any big disasters.
Now let’s have a look at some of the other things. Have you been involved with the Institute of Credit Union Directors at all?
ND: No.
You remember the South Pacific Association of Credit Unions?
ND: Oh yes, I remember all that. They were going before we even started our credit union. They were a very big organisation. They had some big credit unions, mostly the heavy industrial ones were with them.
I think you are thinking of the wrong thing. The South Pacific I was talking about. That was the one that was supposed to help Father Ganey.
ND: Oh yes, I remember that but I wasn’t really involved too much with it.
It didn’t go anywhere I don’t think.
ND: No.
I think it didn’t go anywhere and they wound up after a few years.
ND: That would be right.
As a matter of fact I think you were over there at the time, because they were after funding the Bergengren School.
ND: Yes that was the time that it was mooted, but it never really got off the ground.
Did you go to any World Council meetings?
ND: No. I was at the one where they decided to form the World Council in 1969. Oh the one in Sydney, yes I went to that one in Sydney. Met some of the people that I had met over there in 1969.
Did you manage to bring them down here?
ND: No we didn’t get them down here.
I have seen a photograph of Clarrie Murphy, this is a long while ago of course way back, in the days when he was the Secretary of the League with some of the top people of either CUNA or CUNA Mutual and they came down on a plane and landed south of Wollongong here. There were a whole lot of photographs taken down there.
ND: That would have been, what was his name, Paddy?
Might have been Paddy Bailey yes.
ND: Paddy Bailey, yes. I remember him coming down here with Clarrie Murphy in the early days. We had a meeting at the Grand Hotel in Wollongong. That was virtually a Chapter activity. The Chapter sort of organised the meeting and Clarrie brought Paddy Bailey down, that’s right, brought him down to Wollongong. I remember that quite clearly.
Did you have much to do with Paddy Bailey at all over the years?
ND: No I didn’t. After that I don’t know if I ever saw him more than about once again. Had a lot to do with Carlos Matos and some of those but I don’t remember Paddy Bailey coming into it again.
What about some of the personalities we haven’t mentioned? I mean we have mentioned quite a lot of them. Beresford Calverley, how did you get on with him?
ND: I always had great admiration for Berry. I considered myself a good friend of Berry’s. He used to try and have a fatherly influence on me. I think he used to try and advice me in a lot of ways. I think Beresford played a big part in the credit union.
How was your credit union involved in the business of establishing the ATM machines and all that sort of thing. Were you for that?
ND: No I was out of it by then. I haven’t been involved in any of that at all.
Right. Did you think that credit unions should go in for providing more co-operative services or do you think they provide too many or is it right at the present moment?
ND: I think we are pretty right at the present moment. I have never thought that we ought to go into co-ops and things like that. I think it is a specific thing and I think we ought to stick to what we are doing. I think we are doing that very well and I think if we can fill that need that is a job well done. I think others might be in a better position to do some of those other things.
What about the investment services? Investment advice?
ND: Well I think that is a good off-shoot for the credit union. I think any money management sort of thing, I think that is quite in order.
Do you think the credit union movement has gone wrong in any way over the years?
ND: I was beginning to think at one stage that we shouldn’t have been chasing the market as much as we are. I always advocated that there shouldn’t be differential interest rates, that one bloke’s hundred dollars meant as much to him as another bloke’s ten thousand and he should get the same interest rate as a bloke who has got ten thousand. I argued that way. I also argued very strongly against increases in loan rates during the term of the loan. I used to reckon that once you signed the contract for a certain percentage well then you should honour it. Actually while I was President we even tried to do that. We raised our interest rates at one stage and only raised them new loans and left all the remaining ones as they were. We used to have one set interest rate. But it was brought home to me very vividly that although a lot of members have got the credit union philosophy right off, a lot haven’t. People who have got a few thousand dollars to invest will take it to the building society or somewhere else if they can get half a per cent more. That is actually what happened to us at one stage. We wouldn’t increase our interest on savings because we didn’t want to increase it on the loans and we found that at one stage we had a two or three a month waiting list before we could satisfy our loan demand. So we weren’t doing our members any favour by doing that. That ended my argument that the philosophy was everything. You have got to have a little bit more than philosophy, you have got to be market wise. You know I used to think that there wasn’t any need for the credit unions to follow the market and increase their interest rates every time every one else did, but for practical reasons I think we have got no option. People will take their money where they can get the most for it won’t they.
Do you think that the current balance of saving and credit is correct or do you think people concentrate too much on what they can borrow rather than on what they can save?
ND: Yes I am sure of that. I think we are all, even the country itself, living in hock. I think we are too far into credit and I don’t think it is a good thing for the country or the individual to be too far in hock. I quite realise that we can’t go back to our mother’s and father’s time when they couldn’t get anything until they had enough money to buy. I think we have a better lifestyle by being able to use credit but I think it can be overdone. I think the balance should be a little bit better than it is. I think people get into hock far too much for what they are earning and one thing and another. I think if there could be a bit better balance, it should be.
Is there any way that credit unions can take a lead in doing something about this, or are they stuck?
ND: Well I think the credit union is about the only organisation I know of that tries to do anything about it. I know when I was active and on the Credit Committees and one thing and another we did at least counsel people about taking too much credit. We wouldn’t grant a loan unless we felt that they had the ability to repay. Now I am sure that is not happening in a lot of other financial institutions because salesmen talk people into buying things whether or not they can afford to repay it or not. Then some finance company steps in and lends them the money and the next thing they know they are over-committed. But at least the credit unions are trying to do something to stop people borrowing above their means.
Who do you think are the outstanding people that you have met in the credit union movement over your lifetime?
ND: Well I go back to the early days. As I said earlier I was influenced in the early days and had great admiration for big Stan Arneil. He was the first one that I actually had business with. He was such a confident and exuberant sort of an operator that I don’t think you could be anything else but impressed with him. I think unfortunately he probably went to fast for himself and that, but I still give him credit for what he did in the early days. A lot of the credit unions around this area and that were started by Stan. Although he sort of run out of favour in later years, I still give him credit for what he did while he was in there. Of course Dermot Ryan has always been a big influence on me. He is one of the people I admire very much along with Les Robinson, Ken Miller and those sort of fellows. Jack Lange, as I said, has been one of the main ones. Father Ganey of course and Carlos Matos from overseas are all people that I admired very much in the early days and still do.
You mentioned Frank Richards a while ago. When did you meet him?
ND: When I was on the League Board and going to the League meetings he was there giving us the benefit of his expertise. He was quite a character and a very likeable fellow. Of course he had the nickname from Dermot of Punchy, that is one of the things. There are a lot of other good men too of course with Tommy Kelly and all those fellows. Kevin Yates. All those fellows put a lifetime of work into the credit union movement and I have got nothing but admiration for them.
I know you put a lot of work in the credit union movement yourself, have you got any regrets about that? Did it take a toll on your health and your family life?
ND: I don’t have any regrets. I am very proud of the small part that I played in the credit union movement. I do have some regrets that I might have put a bit more into my family, what might have been expected by Barbara, my wife, when the children were smaller and school age. That is the time when I was most involved and that is the time when I spent a lot of time away from home and she sort of played a bit of a lone hand with all the things that go with raising a couple of kids. I owe a lot to her for anything that I might have done for the credit union movement. I got a great lot of satisfaction and a great lot of fun out of the credit union movement that I know that she didn’t get. But I always got great support from her and she’s very proud of the things that I did and as much as I achieved. She stuck by me and she is the one, if there are any regrets, should have had them.
Where does the credit union movement go now do you think? There are some people who reckon that they have become merely banks in some respects. What is the challenge for the future as you see it?
ND: Well I think the challenge, in my opinion, will be to retain the identity that they have got now and don’t become aligned with other financial institutions. We don’t want to be just another financial institution. It is hard not to slip into that category now because with all the services and things that we do are no longer just a little off-shoot financial thing that is here today and gone tomorrow. We are now recognised as being part of the financial world. I think the big challenge is to try and retain our identity and don’t become known as just another financial institution. I think credit unions’ motto has always been people. You know we are working with people, people before money and I think if ever we lose that philosophy it will be a sad day for the credit union.
Is there anything I should have asked you that I haven’t?
ND: Can’t think of anything, Richard. I unfortunately didn’t get the letter that you said I should have got, so I wasn’t fully prepared for a lot of the things you asked me this morning. I am very pleased to have had the opportunity of putting down on tape, my side of the thing. I would like to thank you for the expert way in which you have conducted the interview. You have made it as easy as possible for me.
Well thank you very much. You have made me very welcome. Thank you Neville Daniel.
ND: Thank you Richard.
End Tape 2B: 2841 Words: 1 hour.