11 FEBRUARY 1992: VCCA7: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO LES HARCOURT
I will ask you Mr Harcourt, where were you born and when?
LH: I was born on 30 June 1925 at Bethseda Hospital, Richmond. My parents lived in Port Melbourne at the time.
Did you go to school around there?
LH: Primary school was all at Knott Street State School in Port Melbourne and then I had four years secondary school at University High School in Parkville to Intermediate standard.
What sort of influence do you think you got from your parents?
LH: I am still emotional about my father. My father enlisted in the AIF in 1940, just six months after I started work. He went to Rabal and was drowned as a prisoner of war on Montemeda Maru and it’s been something of a hole in my life as far as I was concerned. It meant that in the teenage years I didn’t have a father, only a mother.
From your mother?
LH: My mother was an individualist. I was an only child so she was quite an individualist. When my father joined the army we went to live with my paternal grandmother. But that only lasted six weeks, my mother and grandmother didn’t get along too well. So we then moved in with my maternal grandparents and she lived there until 1950 when I got a house at Morwell.
So you can’t think what were the main influences from your childhood?
LH: I think my father influenced me as a boy, but as I say he went away just when I needed him. So I suppose my grandfather, who was a returned soldier from the First World War influenced me perhaps more than anyone else in the teenage years, living in the same house and going into the army from there. It is a very difficult thing to know. I was a member of the IOR. I was a non-drinker and there was an old gentleman and he played an influence in my younger years then when I started work I found that he worked at the same place as I did. Although he was only the cleaner he was somebody you could respect and so on.
IOR?
LH: Independent Order of Recahbites, that is the teetotallers. I am not a teetotaller now but I was for many, many years.
So what was your first job?
LH: My first job I went to work for Australian National Airways, in 1940, I worked there for four months. It is an experience I will never forget because when I went there, there were people being called up into the army and I suddenly found myself in an adult job with a junior’s pay. When I was on the staff there were no hours like there are these days. You got your lunch when there were no planes going out and you knocked off when you had finished your work, including Saturday afternoons, which annoyed me. Then I went and joined the State Electricity Commission on 1 May 1940 and that was the whole of my working life from then until 1984.
So what was your first job there?
LH: What at the SEC? Just a junior clerk doing those sort of very junior clerical jobs which people don’t do these days. Like changing blotters, cleaning out ink-wells and seeing the nibs were all right. Those sorts of things which are looked down on these days, in fact they don’t have blotting paper these days do they?
Somebody making ink on one occasion.
LH: No, I didn’t have to make ink, we had enough money to buy ink. Although making ink used to be at school.
In your school days what were you good at? What did you like?
LH: I don’t know that I was really good at anything. Unfortunately I suffered with defective eyesight since I was two years of age. First of all you had to pass an entrance exam to go to high school in those days. There weren’t very many high schools around and this was one that took students after sixth grade, I think there was only one other in Melbourne that did it. So I was successful but because of my defective eyesight the specialist decided that I had lazy eye so he had to make it work and he covered my good eye up with a patch. That really set me back and I really struggled through that first eighteen months of high school, I couldn’t see the board and it certainly had an effect on my childhood. When I was at high school it was during the big polio epidemic here in Melbourne and we were a bit restricted where we could go. I was never any good at sport and I was just all round as far as studies were concerned that’s all.
So when you got to the SEC were you involved in the union activities?
LH: Not immediately, not until after the War. I was with the SEC from 1940 to 1943, when I went into the army. I was doing general clerical duties there although I think I count myself as being lucky because there was a shortage of man power, so really there were lots of boys doing men’s jobs. I count myself very lucky because I was working in workshop environment where you had a lot to do with the blue collar workers and I learnt a lot from the blue collar workers and so on at that stage. Bearing in mind that I came from Port Melbourne, which was very much a working class suburb and my father, although worked through the Depression, he didn’t get the job that satisfied him but at least he had work.
Where did you go in the army?
LH: Moritai. I went to Hall Island for a short while and then we came back home for a short while and then we went to Moritai, I was at Moritai for about six months. Then the news came through about my father, being an only child I applied for a compassionate discharge and I came home fairly quickly. I was discharged in 1945. When I went back to work that created problems because everyone thought, because no one checked the records, that as I was in the army I must be over twenty-one, but I wasn’t, I was under twenty-one. They over-paid me for six months and then they took it all back in one hit, so I was very poor. When I came back to the SEC in 1945, late 1945, I went to the same workshop environment doing more senior jobs. Then I started CRTS training to be an accountant. I studied that and went from there into our head office and then from head office I went to Latrobe Valley. I was ten years at Latrobe Valley.
So where did you hear about credit unions?
LH: Graham Benson. When I was in Latrobe Valley Graham Benson was my next door neighbour. He played a large part in forming what eventually became the Morwell Co-operative, Graham became the General Manager of the Morwell Co-operative. I was Treasurer of that co-operative for a period of time and then I became a Director for a period of time. Then I moved away to the Latrobe Valley in 1960. I happened to go down at that stage when we were getting all our finance for hire purchase from the ANZ Bank. I happened to go down and see Graham when I visited the place and he told me about credit unions then. My first credit union joined was what was in fact the old SECOA, which eventually became the MOA and then United took it over. Then when the SEC decided to sponsor a credit union I was asked whether I would be a Director. You mentioned earlier about trade union activity, well about 1946 we had what we called the Staff Association, which was a pre-runner to the union. I became the first Secretary, the formation Secretary of the Richmond Branch of the SECOA. I was there for about three years. Then when I went to Morwell I became the first Treasurer of the Morwell Branch of the SECOA.
So when you were down there and you met Graham Benson you became involved with the co-operative organisation there, the credit unions hadn’t actually started?
LH: No there was no credit union. It must have been about 1965 was the first I heard of credit unions. Graham mentioned them and he said they were going to get big. We talked about it and so on.
So were you in on the formation of a credit union?
LH: Yes, the SEC Credit Union. It was known as the SEC Social League Credit Co-operative in 1970, and I am still a Director of the same credit union.
But you had been involved with one before that?
LH: Only as a borrower, that was all I had. The SECOA used to have a situation where you became a member when you wanted to borrow and when you paid out your loan you resigned. That saved affiliation fees, but I didn’t agree with that, I stopped on as a member through all the years.
Can you remember the start of the SEC Credit Union? Exactly how it happened?
LH: Yes. The SEC Credit Union, the Social League had quite a liaison with the Sydney County Council people, and that is where they became aware of credit unions through the Sydney County Council. The Social League said they thought it would be wonderful for their employees so the SEC set up a task force, I wasn’t one of them, which had a look at the whole matter of credit unions. They made a recommendation to management that in fact they should sponsor the formation of the SEC Social League Credit Co-operative. They worked it on that basis and then they invited a number of people to become Directors, because you have got to have yourself organised and so on. I remember that perhaps the first question I asked with regard to the credit union of the SEC was in fact, ‘Is the Board of the credit co-operative going to have the right to hire and fire?’ There was a lot of consternation, but eventually the answer came back, ‘Yes.’ I wouldn’t have been involved if it was just going to be run by the organisation or if a Director didn’t have any real say. I am sorry to say that there are a number of credit unions around Victoria, I don’t know about elsewhere, that are that way. The Board is ruled by the management of the organisation and I think that is very unfortunate.
So you became a credit union. Was the VCCA in operation then?
LH: Yes, the VCCA was in operation. We affiliated with it, our credit union, we have been affiliated all the time since 1970. We perhaps haven’t been as strong a supporter of them as we are now, but we have been there right through. Graham Benson, in fact, came to our Board in about 1972 and suggested that there was a vacancy coming up on the VCCA Board so we should be prepared to nominate someone to become a Director.
I think it must have been 1971, because I have you down as a Director of the VCCA.
LH: Well 1971 then. It is a bit hard to remember back that far. But the Board decided they would endorse me and I became a Director.
Now can you remember at that stage what sort of decisions were being made? Was the central banking system set up?
LH: The central banking system was in its early stages. It wasn’t to the extent to what it is now. There is still a lot of in-fighting going on in the Board, and that was there then.
The factions?
LH: Yes, I think that there were factions. Unfortunately they were religious factions. The VCCA was formed from the Catholic Association before my time and the industrials were starting to sort of flex their muscles a bit. I think there was a lot of ill-feeling between people.
Had the start of the expansion of the parish credit unions into community credit unions started?
LH: Yes it had started. I remember Murray was one that I remember where they expanded down there. It combined two parish credit unions to become a community credit union. Yes it had well and truly started to go into the communities. There were all sorts of problems with the communities though, unfortunately.
Can you remember any of those?
LH: They wouldn’t always do what was suggested to them, they would go along their own way. It became very apparent to me, and I can’t remember when, but when I became Chairman of the VCCA Stabilisation Committee the problems we had in trying to get some of those credit unions straightened out. Little things used to annoy me. They didn’t like to be called credit unions in Victoria, they liked to be called credit co-operatives. Of course that was what the legislation provided for. It was only later when we were able to get credit union into our names. We had to have co-operative at the end of it because it was formed under that particular legislation. Bad lending, not enough time spent on recording and so on, they were big problems. They were letting emotion take over and they didn’t have a real understanding of ‘not for profit’. They thought you couldn’t make any surplus at all out of it so where you were going to get your running expenses from I don’t know. Some of them were very small and they were making too large a loans. Basically I think their major problems were bad recording and lack of follow-up on loans that were made.
Exactly how did the Stabilisation Committee operate?
LH: We operated quite separate from the Board. Although we were all members of the Board we operated quite separately and we made our own decisions. We appointed our own Manager I think we called him, a chap named Reggie Griffiths who has just retired from BTU. He went out and examined the books and so on and made recommendations to us. Then we would go out and talk to them and suggest what they ought to be doing or something.
You didn’t have a Stabilisation staff that went out and took over credit unions?
LH: No, we did not take them over. They used to make contributions towards it, but it wasn’t very much. We used to make recommendations to our Board that we would take certain action. We tidied up some credit unions. We formed Victoria Central Credit Union, I think it was called, and the objective of that was to take over any little credit unions that weren’t managing. It enabled the bond to be carried on. We had a Manager there but unfortunately he was too entrepreneurial in my opinion. Eventually he became General Manager of a building credit union and that has had all sorts of strife.
Do you remember if you sort of followed the example of New South Wales, or were you ahead of them in the stabilisation methods? What happened up there was the Registrar took power over certain credit unions and handed them over to an Administrator. They actually used to arrive there and change the locks and just sack the Board and all this sort of thing.
LH: We tried to do it in a co-operative fashion because the Registrar wouldn’t do anything really. This was the big problem that we didn’t have any sort of legislative backing. We thought we could do it on a more credit co-operative manner within the movement. I suppose we could have if there had been more co-operation.
But you didn’t have any losses?
LH: No, no major losses. I resigned from the VCCA for no other reason but ill-health. When you are going home from a Board meeting and you collapse in the street and they bring the ambulance down to have a look at you, you have got to say, ‘What am I doing?’ Unfortunately the VCCA was one of the things that went by the board, but I still maintained an interest. When the Credit Unions Advisory Committee was formed, the Registrar asked me would I take a role on that and I took a role on that. I was on that organisation right up until the time the Reserve Board was formed.
What years was that, can you remember, I haven’t got it down?
LH: 1977 to 1982, five years. I feel that I was removed from it. I wasn’t re-appointed to the Reserve Board because the VCCA didn’t like me on the Advisory Committee because I was pretty tough.
Have you got any evidence of that?
LH: No, I have got no evidence of that at all. It is just a feeling of my mine that I wasn’t very well received by a number of people. But I have never set out to be popular.
In what way were you tough, if you were tough? What do you think about that?
LH: Well I thought, especially when the Advisory Committee was running, that they weren’t in fact doing the things, the credit unions weren’t doing the things that they ought to have been doing.
Such as?
LH: Well they weren’t being tough enough. They weren’t being tough enough on their borrowers and so on. I am a great believer in looking after people as individuals. But if you make a loan to someone and they keep kicking you in the teeth, well the time has come to start kicking them in the teeth. You are playing with other people’s money. I have a personal philosophy that I am my brother’s keeper. That has been a personal philosophy that I have had for many years. But being my brother’s keeper also means that I have got to look after all my brothers, not just one.
Were you involved in counselling in the early days of the SEC Credit Union at all?
LH: To some extent I was. I was the first, in that credit union, convenor of the Loans and Membership Committee. I spent quite a bit of time with Gordon Farrer, who was our first General Manager. I used to go out in the field with him and so on and I learnt a lot from Gordon. Really the work that Gordon put in with our credit union set it up. If it hadn’t been for him we would never have survived.
What were Gordon Farrer’s strengths and weaknesses, do you think? I have heard stories that weren’t exactly against him, but on the other hand.
LH: His strengths were that in fact he could get alongside people, he could really get alongside people. He could talk to them in their own language and when he went out and spoke to them at the various places on our behalf and he didn’t push down their throats the SEC Credit Union. He pushed credit unions down their throat and said these were the things they had to make a choice about. Murray, for instance, didn’t like us in Latrobe Valley, they said that we were taking people from them. We said, ‘Well you come out with us.’ They went away and I understand they said, ‘No he is not pushing SEC Credit Union, he is pushing credit unions.’ He would say, ‘These are the things. The benefits of credit unions for you. The choice is yours.’ His weaknesses were that, and I have got no evidence of this, but he used to like his drink. Some people got upset with that. His nickname was Wide Eyes.
Some people used to say they had trouble cleaning up after him as far as the paper work went.
LH: That is right. That was one of his weaknesses. When we first started up the SEC there was Gordon and another lass. The lass was in fact a Spanish migrant and she used to answer the phones and take the messages, write them down in Spanish and then translate them for Gordon. Gordon would receive the money. When people put in for membership he would receive the money for the deposits and he would put it in the bottom drawer. The job we had sorting that out. Very early on we realised his real weaknesses were paper work and so on, so we took steps to strengthen that side and we appointed an Office Manager. But you have got to take account of the fact that Gordon really promoted that credit union. I have been out with him. I remember well going to see one person and they were in a very bad way. We came out together and I said, ‘Oh Gordon how do we go on to the next one?’ He said, ‘When we shut that gate, that is that case finished and we go on to the next one.’ He said, ‘You don’t forget about them but you have got to clear your mind to go on to the next one.’ What he said was true. But administratively he was very poor, let us put it that way.
I wonder how much your experience with the SEC Credit Union in those early days led to your being fairly tough later on when you were on the Advisory Committee?
LH: No, it has always been my attitude. You see a number of my jobs with the SEC were in fact dealing with what we call sundry debtors, sundry debtors’ accounts. I had to be tough with those people too. You have no idea the stories you get from some of them. Not for electricity supply but for other jobs we do for them. Perhaps it is my accounting background.
On the Advisory Committee, that was the Advisory Committee to the Minister for Co-operatives was it?
LH: Yes, it was appointed by the Minister.
Did you at that stage have one association or two?
LH: We only had one. Southern was the next one, but that didn’t form until later on.
So you didn’t have the problems they had in New South Wales with several associations. The Advisory Committee there only had one member from each association and of course the League Association got completely outnumbered.
LH: We were different. We only had the one association. I forget when the Southern Association was formed, I think it was when the Herald-Sun had problems. The Manager of the Herald-Sun was on our Board when I first joined.
When you joined the Board in 1971, that was about the time of the insurance split.
LH: Just. The first meeting I went to was at Melbourne University on the insurance split. I didn’t know Stan Arneil that well. As far as we were concerned the CUNA Mutual product was the one that we went for and our credit union have stuck with CUNA Mutual right through. I understand that we are their biggest customer in Australia. They have been very good as far as we are concerned.
I just interviewed John Granata, he gave me a pen, a Parker pen.
LH: You’re lucky. But we have had a very good association with CUNA Mutual from the start. I really don’t know why the insurance split occurred other than probably it was personalities.
There wasn’t any sort of split in Victoria?
LH: Yes.
How did it divide?
LH: It didn’t divide on any lines at all really. Everyone went their own way and made up their own minds. They thought somebody else was doing a better deal for them than CUNA Mutual. I think they lost sight of the fact that CUNA Mutual has a credit union background. We have had very happy relationships with CUNA Mutual. We have never had a debate to change over. We have had approaches but our Board has decided to stick with CUNA Mutual.
What about the VCCA?
LH: They never really stuck with CUNA Mutual because perhaps one of the leading protagonists in it was Graham Benson. Graham Benson didn’t get on with Stan Arneil and I think that is why they went. They didn’t really have a lot of the insurance business. At that stage the big business was with the credit unions, not with the Association.
So there was no talk of having a head policy in Victoria? Running all the insurance through that?
LH: No, not to my knowledge.
You were on the Board at the time so you would know.
LH: I have no recollection of that at all.
Yes well of course that was what happened in New South Wales. They were hoping to have a head policy which was going to pay for their Stabilisation Fund. That was the way it started anyway.
End Tape 1A: 4175 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.
11 FEBRUARY 1992: VCCA 7: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO LES HARCOURT
There is one aspect that I didn’t ask you about before re the Stabilisation Committee. Did you encounter any problems with deficit budgeting?
LH: Yes they did the deficit budgeting all right, but they had no long term plan as to how they were going to come out of it. That was their problem. Their idea of deficit budgeting was to make a loss every year and they had no concept of understanding that in the long term you have got to come out of it. The profits have got to repay what you have done in the first place. They used to worry me. My accounting training didn’t sort of allow that to go on and that is probably one of the reasons I was always in trouble with credit unions. Not with the Committee, but with credit unions.
Who had been encouraging deficit budgeting here in Victoria?
LH: The VCCA to get the growth of credit unions. Deficit in budgeting in itself is a good concept, but you have got to have your plan. You have got to know where you are heading. But they were just deficit budgeting and not knowing where they were heading. I am afraid that the Field Officers of the VCCA were encouraging it. They themselves didn’t have any concept of what it was all about.
So who were the management at that time that you were involved with? When you were first on the Board it was Leon Magree, I think.
LH: No, well Leon Magree he was Manager, but he wasn’t Manager if you understand. They sort of had a tandem and Don Harris was the dominant person though Leon was still in the office. I think Don Harris was known as Executive Officer, they wouldn’t give him the title of Chief Executive Officer. Don, I think had been too close to members of the Board for too long or he just wasn’t going anywhere and that is when we decided to advertise the job. We advertised it and my recollection of it is that Geoff Conrad wasn’t the first choice, it was a chap named Tom Harvey, who was Secretary of Taubmanns and eventually became Chief Executive of the building society later on. But he withdrew at the last minute and Geoff Conrad took the job. Now I felt that he was good, he knew where we were going and so on. Unfortunately he fell by the wayside because of his personal relationship with Elva Eden. I am not quite sure what the relationship was except that they were grogging on, that was the concept. As I said to you earlier this room has recollections, the last time I was in this particular room well after I was off the Board to talk to Geoff and to Elva about the rumours that had been passing around. I had both their personal assurances that that wasn’t so and that was it. But a couple of weeks later and the crash came and I don’t think I have spoken to Geoff since, or Elva, I haven’t seen Elva since, I don’t know where she is.
What about the positive side of Geoff Conrad’s managership?
LH: Oh he was excellent. As far as I was concerned he was excellent. He pushed things along. We got thinks moving in a well co-ordinated fashion. The Field Officers weren’t just Field Officers, they were going out to talk to people on how they could line up and improve their facilities and working. I think that period of Geoff Conrad, in my opinion, was a period of high growth and consolidation. He wasn’t entrepreneurial, as was his successor. This place was built because we didn’t have a home at that stage, we used to have various places to go.
Can you remember the decision and your involvement leading up to the building of this building?
LH: Yes we decided that we needed something better than what we had previously in rented premises. We had to co-ordinate it I think with Telecom Credit Union, I think that was the credit union, in fact they took the ground floor here. They had a drive-in teller and the whole concept was that the credit union occupied the whole building. Unfortunately in the late 1970s was when the financing became a problem and that became the push.
What was the problem with the financing? Had Jubilee Lake started?
LH: Jubilee Lake was quite separate from that, we formed a separate company. This building was built under a private company and it was quite separate from VCCA. There is a name that you haven’t got mentioned here, there was an interim person between Geoff Conrad and Michael Hildebrand, an acting person, I think it was Leon Turner. He was a member of a group of project management people who came in and built this place.
So that period was a difficult one was it? At the transition there between the two was the argument over the building or was it over something else?
LH: I think there was a lot of things going on at that time. They built the place and we occupied it but my understand is that the finance side of it became a problem because things became tight. Jubilee Lake was starting just after that. It was during Mike Hildebrand’s period. The problem that Mike Hildebrand had was that he was an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs in my opinion don’t fit into the credit union movement. He was going to do all sorts of things with Jubilee Lake. He was bringing in his cronies to do things, and so on. Sacking architects. Where there were architects before he brought in a designer. That really caused all sorts of problems. Then the mini-crash in the early 1980s, where you just couldn’t get finance and so on, the thing just couldn’t proceed. We just decided then that we would close it up.
Did you know anything about the arrangements with Teledata, which also contributed to the financial problem?
LH: No, I didn’t know a great deal about that because we had resisted all along. We had gone our own way with our computers. They tried to get us to come into Teledata but we didn’t think much of their system. Teledata was the company formed from CUDAL, I think. In our opinion it wasn’t good enough and so we didn’t get involved. Although we were still affiliated with the VCCA we stood at arm’s length with that one.
What about the Cue cards, did you get involved with them at all?
LH: No. No, didn’t want to be involved with them. That was Hildebrand. This was all Hildebrand’s entrepreneurial studies and so on.
Graham Benson at Latrobe took that on.
LH: Yes he may have. But see Graham is one that can in fact, and I think this is one of his problems, an entrepreneur can hoodwink him. That is the only comment I would like to say. But we just went our own way. We were one of the first in the eastern States, even before New South Wales took an interest, in General Computing Services, GCS. We took our system from GCS from Western Australia whereas later on New South Wales formed the company of FCS as an off-shoot of GCS. But we didn’t get involved with FCS until much later on. GCS was how we got involved.
So what hardware did you use with GCS? Did GCS own hardware?
LH: No GCH used AWA Reality, which is now McDonald Douglas.
Yes I was aware of that. So at that stage in the proceedings you were using the GCS and AWA Reality?
LH: Yes.
Before New South Wales was involved?
LH: Yes.
The McIntyres were involved in New South Wales before the League got involved. Were you involved before them?
LH: Probably. What happened was that we were on the Queensland Teachers’ system with them. They wanted to rewrite the thing, the programs, and they wanted money from us. I just couldn’t justify that so we decided to get someone in who could have a look at the system and look to see what alternatives were available. Now I forget the name of the consultant, but the consultant came in and said very strongly not to rewrite, that the best system available in Australia was in fact the GCS. He very highly recommended the GCS system.
Who was the consultant?
LH: I forget his name now.
Wasn’t the former Manager of the New South Wales League, Les Robinson was it?
LH: No.
He was selling for that group at that moment.
LH: No it was an outside consultant. No-one to do with the credit union movement. We decided then to go to GCS. In fact we hired them as consultants to advise us on our next moves and so on.
You mentioned that you went with the Queensland Teachers’ system. Did you actually have an ATM?
LH: No, we didn’t have an ATM at that stage.
So what do you mean?
LH: Well their system, their computer system. The history of our accounting system is that we had ledger machines. Then we went on to the Commonwealth Bank system through a bureau. I went up to Sydney to evaluate that. I spoke to the Repatriation Credit Union up in Sydney. We came back and we took that over down here. Then we moved from then onto, I forget the name of the system, but it was Queensland Teachers’ had the system where you had intelligent terminals. They were very good and we were able to do our own thing. But then we outgrew them and we were looking around. That is when they wanted the money to rewrite the system and that is when we went across to GCS. We have been with GCS-FCS ever since.
Did you try and persuade the VCCA to adopt the GCS system?
LH: Yes.
But they still went their own way with Teledata?
LH: Yes. I think they saw a buck in it.
Well there might have been too, because it occurred to me that at that stage Teledata’s strength was in the hardware.
LH: Well that was it anyhow.
My point is this, it could have been mainly that when FCS finally came out of it, their strength was in the software.
LH: Yes well we were more interested in the software than anything else. Then the hardware to accommodate the software. We didn’t buy the software from GCS we bought the hardware from AWA.
So you were second after Perth?
LH: Yes. We were worried about that but it was an excellent decision.
So how did that affect you when New South Wales League bought out a joint venture with GCS as FCS?
LH: Didn’t worry us at all. It was only eventually when they bought our GCS and became FCS-Teledata, wasn’t it?
In Victoria, yes.
LH: We kept our finger on the pulse right through. Our credit union has been accepted as being one of the leaders in that particular area. We have also got a very strong internal staff on the computer side. That is acknowledged in Victoria too.
Now perhaps can I ask you, were you on the Legislative Committee at the VCCA at all?
LH: No, I kept out of that. I had enough problems without worrying about the problems of legislation. There were more arguments about that than anything else. It has been going on for years and years and I think even today it is still going on.
Well what about the field of credit union Chapters, were you involved there at all?
LH: No. I don’t see a great deal of benefit in the Chapters except that it provides a smaller and smaller boxing ring. No that is where all the problems have been coming from, these people all coming together and all sitting down and talking to one another. They get these Chapters and it might be all right for education of some of the Directors, but those Chapters are not run by Directors.
So what about Schools, did you go to any credit union Schools?
LH: Oh yes I have been to quite a number of credit union schools. Been to Warburton. With credit union Schools people seem to think that the only way you can find out how to run a credit union is by going to a credit union School. Well there are lots of things in running credit unions that you can learn quite well from the outside world. I think we don’t make enough use of those sorts of things. Philosophy and so on is OK, but I think that AICUM and ICUDA in fact fulfil those roles quite well. There is no difference, in my opinion, on accounting and so on between private enterprise, or a company and a credit union.
Have you been involved in AICUM and ICUD over the years?
LH: I regularly attend ICUDA, or have been anyhow. Our Board has a policy of at least going to on ICUDA School every second year and AICUM every third year for Directors. We have a policy.
Have you ever been involved at all in the running of those organisations?
LH: No. AICUM is Managers and I let them do their own thing. I have tried to cut down my involvement in many things. You can get yourself that involved that you have no time for yourself. As you get a bit older you have got to start to accept the things going somewhere else.
You mentioned earlier on when I mentioned people like Dermot Ryan and Stan Arneil, that you had met on a couple of occasions there. Did you know Stan Arneil at all?
LH: No I didn’t know Stan Arneil at all, really. I didn’t know Stan Arneil at all. I don’t think I ever met him.
What about Dermot Ryan?
LH: Yes I met Dermot on a number of occasions. The first AFCUL Convention I went to was at Wollongong. I went as an observer and I wondered what the heck it was all about. There was this little fat man running the place. I don’t think Graham Benson was on the Board, he went off the Board for a little while. No, he ceased to be Chairman that’s right.
Well at Wollongong he should have been. He was still President in 1973.
LH: Yes. I am just trying to think. Anyhow he explained it to me. He had a very high opinion of Dermot. The two people he had a high opinion of were Dermot and Jack Lange. Evidently Dermot and Jack Lange fell out at some stage. Going back to Wollongong, that was when they wouldn’t let Stan Arneil talk and so on. He was there and he was protesting and all the rest of it. I remember that quite well.
That was the insurance split in New South Wales.
LH: It was just after that they brought one of the Directors from America, Charlie Compton, was it Charlie Compton?
It was probably Charlie Eickle.
LH: Well he took over and Stan was sort of left.
Well yes of course it could have been and then John Granata.
LH: There was an interim period between the two, I am trying to sort that out.
Was that Charles Compton then. He had been at a lot of the Schools which CUNA Mutual had run at Newport and such like.
LH: Yes. I remember our Board sent our Vice-Chairman and Office Manager up to a Newport School. They came back and they were a bit amazed because they thought it was a drinking contest they went to. We hadn’t quite expected that.
They must have got involved in what was known as Room 19. That was Sydney Credit Union’s entertainments room.
LH: They came back a bit bemused. I have never been involved in the running of these other organisations mainly because of time constraints.
So what have you been involved in with the VCCA that we haven’t covered yet?
LH: There was the Jubilee Lake. I was one of the Directors of Jubilee Lake. I was disappointed when Jubilee Lake folded eventually. I think there were in fact tremendous facilities there that could have been made available and so on. But it was just that the money wasn’t available and you have just got to accept that. It became available later on but the spot was no longer available. So it is a matter of whether we did the right thing or not. But at that stage there was no other answer to it but to fold up. As I say I did my hundred dollars.
I did mine on Compass.
LH: Yes.
There must be some areas that we haven’t covered at all I would think that you have been involved in.
LH: Well I was Vice-Chairman for a while. Bob Moffett and I instituted the system of when we were at meetings and so on of me being Chairman of Committees and he being Chairman of the open meetings. We felt that was a better way of giving a rest to each other.
So what Committees were you Chairman of?
LH: Stabilisation. That used to take enough of my time. We used to meet once a week and that was about all I can say. At that stage I didn’t get involved in the Legislative.
Where did the Stabilisation Fund get its money in Victoria?
LH: Levy. We put a levy on. I think it was 10 per cent, or something, of deposits.
This wasn’t compulsory was it?
LH: It was compulsory, because we altered the VCCA’s By-laws or rules. If you became a member of the VCCA you had to comply with the Stabilisation.
Did this cause any disaffiliation?
LH: I am not quite sure. I know it caused a lot of consternation and so on.
For instance in New South Wales they had two disaffiliations, which later went down and were not covered and members lost money. But you had none in Victoria.
LH: I think there were some that weren’t affiliated at all, but they didn’t disaffiliate. I think we brought enough pressure to bear that they shouldn’t disaffiliate.
Well exactly how did you bring this pressure to bear? That is what I am trying to get at. You were more successful.
LH: Well we had two rough characters. There was Harcourt and Hodgkinson. Have you interviewed Peter Hodkingson yet? Well we were pretty rough customers and we didn’t pull any punches. We more or less indicated that if they disaffiliated we would make it fairly widely known that they were disaffiliated because they weren’t prepared to come into the Stabilisation to protect their members’ funds and so on. It generally dissuaded them. We didn’t use any strong-arm tactics, we just gently dissuaded them.
Can you remember who you dissuaded and when?
LH: No. I can’t remember anyone. There was so much of an upheaval at that stage. There was quite a bit of debate at the Annual Meetings and so on when we decided we would have the levy. But no, I can’t remember back that far now.
Were you involved in the Foundation at all?
LH: No.
Do you remember an occasion when Peter Hodgkinson was much involved in criticising the Foundation, particularly Dermot Ryan’s running of the Foundation?
LH: No. I can remember going to Hobart and Peter Hodgkinson and I having a go at Punchy Richards over the accounts. The accounts weren’t complete. We eventually convinced him that they weren’t complete and he wasn’t very happy with us because we hadn’t told him before. But we pointed out to him that we didn’t have the accounts until we were coming down in the plane. So how could we tell him before hand? This is when we entered into the subsidiary companies and so on. There wasn’t sufficient information. It didn’t line up with the Act.
Do you know how Punchy Richards got his name?
LH: Because he looks that way. I think that is what it is. I only knew him as Punchy.
He used to fight with Dermot.
LH: Did he? He had a fight with Dermot did he?
Yes, made a mess of him too.
LH: I didn’t know anything about that. I don’t think he recognises me these days. It is only in more recent years that I have started to go to AFCUL Conventions. I have only seen him once or twice at the AFCUL Conventions. He used to walk in there aggressively. I tell you what in Hobart he would have done both Peter Hodgkinson and I. He was blaming Peter and I said to him afterwards, ‘You blamed Peter?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Well it wasn’t actually Peter it was me. I drew Peter’s attention to it.’
Did you have anything to do with John Galvin.
LH: Yes. A real gentleman, John. A real gentleman. He was our legal adviser to our credit union right from the start until he became Vice-President of the Ministry of Appeals Tribunal. I would count him as a personal friend. I do feel sometimes though, especially when he was on the Advisory Committee that he had problems with coming to grips with being separate, setting himself aside. He represented so many credit unions and when you were talking about taking action against a credit union he was that involved with the other side when they take legal advice. He is now on it, but he is no longer a legal adviser to any of the credit unions. But he is a real gentleman. I wouldn’t hear anyone say anything against him anyhow.
Which meeting are we talking about?
LH: It was held at the Postal Office in Carlton. There was a big roll up of members. It was when they looked like crashing. The whole VCCA looked like going down. People were talking about disaffiliating and so on. The thinking was that we couldn’t allow that to go on. If that had become public it could have, at that stage, made the public right across credit unions right across the board. It could have caused problems. I spoke very much about continuing the credit union and giving the support to people and the need for support. To support one another, not to give lip-service as some of them had been doing over a number of years. They had to come back in and really support it. I felt at that stage that personally I played a major role on the VCCA continuing on or whether it didn’t. I didn’t want to go on as a Director, I felt that as an outsider you can do more in some cases to provide support. I pledged my credit union. I was Chairman at that stage. I pledged my credit union to continue on as we had always continued on. We had not got into the fights and so on. We had used the Services and so on.
You mentioned that Reg Elliott was at that meeting. What was he doing there?
LH: Reg Elliott came down from New South Wales also for the same thing, to try and rescue the VCCA. He spoke very well. He indicated ways we could achieve what we wanted to do.
Was he invited down, do you know?
LH: Yes he was invited down. He spoke very well. At that stage he was the Chief Executive or General Manager of the New South Wales League. That was before they had their problems wasn’t it?
He had been there for a while. They weren’t having problems then.
LH: Did they have the Association as well then, did they?
The Association came along in 1982, I think.
LH: Yes that’s right. It was before the Association. But he spoke very well.
End Tape 1B: 4008 Words: 1 hour 35 minutes.