23 MARCH 1992: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO DON HARRIS
I will ask you first Mr Harris, where were you born and when?
DH: I was born in Richmond in 1930.
Did you grow up around there?
DH: No. I grew up in Kew initially and then in to St Kilda. Finally, after marriage, up the hills in Ringwood and surrounding areas.
Where did you go to school?
DH: CBC St Kilda and Assumption College Kilmore, secondary.
What sort of family background did you have? What sort of influences did you get from your parents do you think?
DH: Bit hard to describe I suppose. My mother and father were separated when I was about five and most of the influence was from my mother I suppose.
Political, religious?
DH: Religious mainly. Politics didn’t worry me very much. I don’t have much time for them. I am a technician, not a politician.
Growing up round there, what were your main interests as a child?
DH: Normal sporting activities, football, cricket.
What did you like or dislike about school do you think?
DH: At school? Very hard to remember now it is that long back.
Did you dislike anything?
DH: Not very much, no. I suppose the tedium of long hours or times away from home, we were at boarding school, that was a bit strenuous I suppose. But it had its other compensations.
When you left school, did you leave school fairly early?
DH: No, after I did my matriculation. Then I went to work with what was then the Commonwealth Oil Refineries, which is now BP. Then after that I went to work with the SEC. I worked with them for about seventeen years I suppose.
What sort of job?
DH: In the clerical field. Then I was appointed the Senior Clerk in charge of a technical laboratory at Richmond.
When did you first hear about credit unions?
DH: When? Or where?
Well shall we say about co-operatives, because you were involved with the YCW?
DH: Well I suppose about 1959 when we first heard about them. First became interested in them about 1963, 1964 through our own local area where there was some community or parish credit union down at St Francis Xavier’s.
You were involved in the running of that credit union?
DH: No. I wasn’t involved in it. I was involved in the formation of our own parish credit union, St Claire’s.
How did you become involved with the YCW?
DH: Well I was a YCW person back in the 1940s and 1950s. Most of those things sort of evolved and once you were in there, like anything else, like the Melbourne Cricket Club, once you get in it is hard to get out.
You were in the early days of the formation of the YCW?
DH: No only as a member in local area branch, that’s all.
What about the trading co-operative?
DH: Got involved with that later on, after I was working with the VCCA.
So when you joined your local one were you ever involved in running that at all, your local credit union?
DH: The local credit union? Yes I was the Treasurer, the Formation Treasurer. From that we moved into what in those days it was the Association of Catholic Co-operative Credit Societies. I moved on to the Board in the late 1960s and then applied for a full-time job as a Development Officer about August 1969. I formed about forty-eight, forty-nine credit unions, I am not sure I never was much good at mathematics. I took on the role of Chief Executive Officer, General Manager I suppose before I retired.
When you took on the role of Chief Executive Officer was there any problems between you and Leon Magree, who had been virtually doing the job before?
DH: No. One of the things that sort of made you part of the credit union was the fact that didn’t work for themselves, they worked for other people. Leon had been working with the VCCA, or the ACCCS, for many years. It was just one of those things. It was just progress. Like I was replaced and the bloke after me was replaced and the bloke after him was replaced, it was just one of those things. It was mainly the fact that people, in their own right, believed that the credit union was something worthwhile working for. It was strange I suppose, you don’t see that much these days.
Not even in credit unions?
DH: No. No very few. Credit unions have lost their touch I think with the people. Too big, too big. They say that big is beautiful and may be that is the answer, but credit unions are not governed by the people any more they are governed by a very, very small group of people I would say. Power bases and power bases. As I said I am not a politician I am a technician.
Right. So when you came into the credit union movement, in the first instance just as an individual, how did they run your credit unions? Did you have Supervisory Committees?
DH: No. There was just the ordinary Board of Directors, Secretary, Treasurer and the local parishioners were the members.
Did you operate the credit union on a Sunday?
DH: Yes. At what other time would you do it? If you are a ‘mick’ what other time would you do it, you’ve got a captive audience haven’t you.
As Treasurer, what did you do?
DH: Well I maintained the books, set up the accounting system, organised the Sunday takings and so forth. General treasury work. Looked after the loans and so forth.
Was the Treasurer the auditor too, or was there somebody overseeing you?
DH: Independent auditors all the time.
I don’t mean that, I mean was there an internal auditor?
DH: No. I mean you were lucky to have more than about one hundred members, you know. Those things didn’t come in until probably the early 1970s when things got a bit more streamlined.
You know there is a credit union in Brisbane that started in 1946, it is called the Christian Credit Union, it is an Anglican one. It had seventy something members when it started and it has got seventy-seven members now. That operates one day a month.
DH: That’s good. They are probably great people. They all know each other’s business.
Well they actually have in on one evening. They come in for a social occasion.
DH: A good idea.
They don’t charge interest and they don’t pay interest.
DH: Good idea. That is what they are all about, they were all about.
But they always charged interest didn’t they?
DH: Yes. The loan interest was always subject to the Board’s discretion, as usual, and the rates of interest on deposits. In those days they used to give you rebates if you made too much profit of course. They never put anything on one side for reserves so they used to give it back if there was too much profit.
So what made you join the Board?
DH: I was on the Board in the first instance, yes. I was approached by Leon actually. I think Leon was the first one to contact me to see if I was interested. Then after I resigned from the Board I left the SEC and went to work with commercial people as an Assistant Company Secretary and the accountant for a firm in Collingwood. I left that and came on full-time on the VCCA. Big deal in those days, $4,000 a year.
That was an improvement on what you were getting before was it?
DH: No, it wasn’t. I dropped down a bit. Dropped down about $500 or $600 I suppose.
Why did you do it?
DH: Oh I believed in the credit union movement in those days. I think it was a great thing. You don’t often get the opportunity to probably do something for a lot of people and the credit union movement had that facility I believe.
Who was Chairman then, when you first went on the Board?
DH: Graham Benson I think. Yes Graham would be Chairman.
How did you get on with him?
DH: Oh we had our disagreements as most people would. On the Board we were equal but of course when I became a full-time employee, it became the employer-employee relationship. As I say, I was more of a technician than a politician and I probably got my fingers burnt in trying to be a politician, I just came off second best that’s all. You learn to live with it, move on and start your next job, that’s all.
Can you remember what was significant about the time that you were on the Board, the first time?
DH: Yes, that was when we all started to talk about the then called Stabilisation Fund. Graham’s and my desire to invest the funds in land out at Hallam, which would probably materially increased the value of their funds by about 30 per cent, 300 per cent. The change of name, the change of attitude. Generally probably bringing in people from outside the old Association of Catholic Co-operatives. Opened our eyes a bit further and allowed us to see that there were other people around besides ‘Micks’. You know we got to that stage where we felt it was not a closed shop any more. But it always had that taint about it I suppose, if you can use that word loosely, that it was always a Catholic society. Which it wasn’t, it was a person society really. That is the way I looked at it, most people looked at it anyway.
Were you in in the early days when the political business, the split in the Labor Party was going through and the movement was operating, the DLP and the like. How did this effect the credit union movement, or weren’t you in it then?
DH: No when I got involved in it the only political problems we got into was there was a distribution one year which came down from AFCUL for us to distribute over the credit unions which gave the Labor Party a bit of support, that was all. The other side of it, the DLP-ALP, I was never involved in that. There wasn’t anything like that, to my knowledge. There probably was, because as I said I wasn’t a political person, but to my knowledge there wasn’t anything on the surface about it. May be subversively, but not on the surface.
Did you hear anything about any people in the Church, whether they be in the hierarchy and what have you, suggesting that in actual fact you shouldn’t keep it to yourselves, that you should try and get more people into the credit union movement from outside the Church?
DH: Yes. There was a mixture of that. There was a lot of priests and ministers who believed that it should have been expanded. Equally as many who would consider that it was their own local prerogative. It is a human thing. I mean you are dealing with human beings. You have got human fallacies and problems to be associated with it.
Did any of the Anglicans get into the credit union co-operative movement in Victoria that you know of at all?
DH: What on the VCCA?
No, just generally around the credit union movement and the co-operative movement.
DH: Only, from my own knowledge, when we opened up the old ACCCS that’s all. It became a bit wider and I thought myself, personally, it was good.
It is just that in both New South Wales and in Queensland there are quite a few credit unions that started independently which are generally Anglican credit unions. Whereas I haven’t found any in Victoria, as yet.
DH: The only ones that would have been started, which would have been inter-denominational or international, would have been the Ukrainian I think. There was one out here. But other than that they were mostly parish, local community or town. Graham’s out at Morwell was a good thriving credit union. Then you had Moe which sprang from two parish credit unions. Then you had the industrial ones. I think the CSIRO might have been the oldest industrial one formed. I just can’t remember off the top of my head, it is twenty-five years ago.
Can you remember what made you resign from the Board the first time?
DH: Well I was getting ready to take on the job as Development Officer. At that time I felt that I probably could make a more worthwhile contribution by being full-time than just part-time.
You were Development Officer for quite some time and started a lot of credit unions. Can you tell me how you went about starting credit unions? Who helped you, who joined you in this?
DH: Well when I first came here we didn’t have any system at all. It was just a matter when somebody referred you to somebody you went in and said, ‘Right, well would you like to start a credit union?’ or ‘We’ll start a credit union for you.’ My main brief was to go beyond the parish side of it and to start industrial credit unions. That was what I was employed for and to do that I set up a system which enabled me to ring up and call on different companies which had say five hundred or more employees. It was just a continual follow-up system really. At the same time we got a few contacts, like the SEC was formed through contacts within the credit union movement that wanted to form a credit union with the SEC.
Did you form that one?
DH: Yes.
That’s a gigantic credit union now.
DH: Yes. Formed Telecom, Piccol, SEC, most of the big industrials, the Police, most of the big ones.
When you went out for form these did you go out on your own or did you take the Registrar or union people?
DH: No. We went on our own. We did it all on our own.
We?
DH: Well there was only Leon and I. Leon had to stay back to look after the paper work and I went out to form the credit unions. Then we changed positions. When we swapped around he went out as Development Officer and I think David Mandubiana was there then too. I started the management side of it and the technical side of it. I started our manual actually. I started the central bank and did all the cash-flow and all the charts for the central bank for the people to be able to follow it. Leon went out forming credit unions and I stayed in. So it was a sort of interlocking, changing situation.
Did you liaise with anybody else over the central bank?
DH: Yes. My word it was started in New South Wales by what’s his name?
Don Harvey, Les Robinson?
DH: Les Robinson.
It was actually going in Clarrie Murphy’s day, but it wasn’t really moving.
DH: Les really got it off the ground and we got hold of what their plan was and refined it a bit to make it suitable for down here, that was all. The same as the credit union manual, you know you don’t re-invent the wheel, if there is something already there you just better it.
Well New South Wales got it from America. Or Canada, I am not quite sure which.
DH: That’s right. That’s basically what happened then. We were just concentrating on administration, visitations to credit unions, particularly Chapters,. Seminars, we used to run seminars. Either I would do one on my own or take somebody from the credit union movement up with me. Leon would do the same. We would be out at Chapter meetings, you know. It wasn’t unusual to be out three and four nights a week.
A lot of work.
DH: That is what it was all about in those days.
The Chapter movement in Victoria seems to have been much more widespread than anywhere else in Australia.
DH: Well maybe so, but I think the original basis helped that. When you started the parish credit unions within the various parishes, within the various country provincial towns, well then you know you automatically set up your own Chapter really. I mean if half a dozen or nine of them got together once every month or couple of months, as the case may be, they just sort of blossomed from that I suppose. A good thing. Exchange of ideas.
But the Chapters seem to have died off somewhat since AICUM and ICUD. I mean the Melbourne one is still going, but there don’t seem to be that many other ones.
DH: Well I can’t answer that.
It is the same in New South Wales, mind you, there is twelve.
DH: It is years since I was really involved with the credit union movement. I resigned in 1980, something like that, before I went out into public practice. I haven’t really and truly kept in touch with anything because I have had my own business to worry about.
So, what with the development and the Chapters and then writing manuals and what have you, you must have pretty well had your work cut out?
DH: Well we look back sometimes and we laugh about it. But at one stage there was only Leon. Then there was Leon and I for a few years. Then there was Leon and I and David for a few years. The money just wasn’t there to do anything else. So if you had to work you worked, that was all there was to it.
David?
DH: Mandubiana. He is dead, died some time back. He actually was a Field Officer in New South Wales and then came down here. We hired him. He wanted to come back home so we hired him back here. He was here for a couple of years and then he died of leukaemia. There was no direction for Directors or any means of mapping out what a Secretary would do. No profiles for a Secretary or a Treasurer. So that is why that came about in an effort to try and get people to accept responsibility. We were influenced a lot by what was happening in America at that time. Canada and America had tremendous influence on the direction that the credit union took in the early 1970s.
So when you used to go out starting credit unions, you had all the paper work made up? I mean who decided on the name of the credit union, for instance?
DH: It wasn’t very difficult if you were going to a company. Usually the people who were sponsoring it would want the company to be involved, such as like the SEC or the ACI, or whatever it might have been, the Herald. So there wasn’t much difficulty in choosing the name. In the first instance you used to address the people when they were at lunch in their canteens and you would get a Steering Committee of about ten or twelve. You would lead them along so that they would become the initial Board of Directors and the Secretary and Treasurer. You would get them to make those decisions themselves.
You had the paper work already made out, and all that sort of thing?
DH: After the Steering Committee had agreed with the name it was just a straight forward statutory situation. Standard reservation of name, standard names to go in the formation documents, etc. Very much similar to setting up a company really.
The Registrar or someone from his office never used to go out with you?
DH: Very seldom. We used to send all the papers in to them for their approval and they used to say, ‘Yes’ and away they would go. Issue the Certificate of Incorporation and then you would go out and start them up with the Books of Accounts and show them how to work the passbooks and what they had to do as far as making loans are concerned. That is why that came in handy after a while.
Did you have a Field Officer to follow-up?
DH: No, we used to do it ourselves. We used to do the lot. Just the two or us there for a long while. It was real fun I can tell you.
Have you got any stories you can tell about those times?
DH: Oh not really. They were real good times.
Did you have a car to go out?
DH: Oh yes the car was supplied. I used my own car initially for some time, when I first started. Then they supplied a car. We got to the stage of instead of having to talk, Keith Glover made up a series of slides on what is a credit union. We used to sit back and relax then and just watch the slides go on. Keith used to do the dialogue and we used to push the button to turn the slides, so that made it easy. It was great.
Did you ever show King’s X?
DH: No, not at that time, not allowed to. At one time, I must admit, bringing back one. I went up to Ballarat to start an industrial one up there. It is a big industrial one, I forget their name, but I grabbed everything, I was running late. I grabbed everything, the tape recorder, slides and everything and got it all set up when I got up there. I pushed the button to start it and the tape that was in there was Leon Magree’s voice dictating a letter to his secretary, the other tape was left back at the office. So I had to turn around and do it by the old dialogue way then. We used to have some fun. They used to have fun up at Warburton, when they used to hold the seminars up there. You have probably heard many tales about Warburton. That was a great leveller, Warburton. A lot of people enjoyed themselves up there and they learnt a lot. Some even learnt there were other people in the world beside themselves too.
Do you remember Dermot Ryan?
DH: Yes, old Dermot. Dermot was a bit of a character, a law unto himself, and a great politician. A great politician. But of course his influence down here was only negligible compared to what it was in New South Wales.
Who were some of the other characters? I have heard about Bob Clayton, what was he like?
DH: Bob was a bit of a character. He was a Minister, an Anglican Minister I think he was. Then there was the mentionable, I suppose, Stan Arneil. You have got to mention Stan as being one of the pioneers wouldn’t you. Peter Hodgkinson was a bit of a character in his early days. He might not like people to tell him that now, but he was.
He still is, I will tell you that.
DH: He was a bit of a character. Used to like a glass of ale. But then we all did. Peter Riley was another bloke from Burwood, he was a bit of a character. Macca, I suppose, Brian McMahon, would have been one of the best leaders that we had in his way. You don’t get them like that any more because you don’t have that intimate relationship that these people used to have. I mean some of them up at Warburton would be in drink and booze from eight o’clock or nine o’clock at night until dawn. Then they would front up to the lectures next day. It was funny seeing that. No there were a lot of people in this movement that put in a lot of time and deserve a lot of kudos. Leon Magree would be one of them. Leon is the longest serving member in the credit union movement, or the co-operative movement, to my knowledge. I think he is going to try and break Ted Long’s record actually, just out of pique more than anything else.
Do you remember the Warburton Weekly?
DH: That was just something that was put out by the locals on tap then. Bob Moffatt and Keith Glover and probably one of the staff, the girl staff that we had down here.
Do you remember the Warburton Very Weakly?
DH: No, not that one.
The one that Dermot did.
DH: No Dermot was a bit of a character. He used to come down and give us a bit of a rev up every now and again. But there was only one Dermot Ryan and I think there will only ever be one Dermot Ryan. That’s it. The movement can only breed those people once.
Some people would say thank God.
DH: Well these things don’t get going unless you have got characters. I mean it is made up of people of all types. Dermot wouldn’t stand, probably a lot of the old people including myself, a chance in today’s situation. It all depends, because it is a different atmosphere. There are different needs satisfaction. Ours was starting, these people now they have got the very difficult task of keeping it going. I mean if they ever knock off 23(g) tax and tax exemption and tax the credit unions it will kill them. It will be the finish of them.
Do you remember and Dermot and a few other people in the political arena getting that?
DH: Getting the exemption? The exemption was mainly going through STATAX and TOPCO. There used to be a State and a Federal credit union, one was TOPCO and one was STATAX. They were the ones that were responsible for that. What Dermot got was exemption for stamp duty. That was in 1969, 1970. But he had nothing to do with the exemption for 23(g).
The income tax he did. He got Whitlam to promise it before the election, about the income tax exemption.
DH: The income tax exemption goes back to 1967. 23(g) goes back to 1968, 1967.
We are talking about different taxes, obviously?
DH: No, this was income tax on profits. 23(g) exonerates credit unions and those clubs, associations in New South Wales, that is basically what that dealt with. That was in the Act for some time.
Well firstly there was a number of cases that Father Gallagher fought through the courts and he finally won one, which was I believe Waitara, which is 1965. He lost Revesby and a couple of others.
DH: But Revesby then, that became another situation.
Then in New South Wales they fought the Water Board case, that was in South Australia, and lost that. Then the next thing they tried it from the political angle and that was when Dermot and Frank Crean went down to the Hobart Conference and announced that it was coming.
End Tape 1A: 4518 Words: 1 hour 45 minutes.
This tax business has me worried again. Do you know the business where Sir Henry Bolte was involved and the delegation, were you any part of that?
DH: Yes the stamp duty. That was Leon, Dermot and I think Graham Benson were the actual delegation that went to see Sir Henry.
Well Ralph Lewis told me that Benson wasn’t here and he had to go in.
DH: Could have been. I was with Leon when we compiled it, but I had just started at that stage. That would have been 1969 I think.
Several people told me the story about there being a cigarette box on the desk and Dermot saying, ‘Sir Henry can I have one of your fags?’ He said, ‘Help yourself.’
DH: There is no doubt about Dermot. There is only one Dermot. I’ve said that once and I will say it for the last time.
So you prepared that did you?
DH: No, I was part of it. Leon had done most of the hard work. It would have been one the first things that happened not long after I joined in August 1969. Dermot came down and Leon, I am pretty sure Dermot and Leon were there. It could have been Ralph. I thought Graham would have been involved obviously.
I think he was away at the time. Ralph said he was away at the time and he had to do it.
DH: He could have been overseas, yes.
Apparently he spoke for half an hour.
DH: And said nothing.
Sir Henry said he would have done it straight away, according to Ralph.
DH: He was a great bloke Ralph. Now he is a character in his own right. Tell you that. Now there’s a character. You’re talking about characters. He is a great bloke. We had a lot of fights in the initial stages but as we all grew older and we got a little bit more sense I think we all agreed that we were well and truly involved.
Did you know about his attitude to reserves?
DH: Ralph? Ralph was a very conservative accountant, let’s put it that way.
He didn’t believe in reserves. He always believed the bank would bail him out.
DH: Lots of things that we didn’t believe in, in those days. Ralph wouldn’t have been the only one.
He said on one occasion the bank bailed him out for nothing when the pay-roll cheque didn’t come in on time.
DH: That would be right. People used to do that then. I mean you could walk up to a bloke in those days and shake him by the hand and say you’d got a deal. You know that whatever you said, whatever contract was there between you on a verbal basis, you would have no worries. You find that very difficult to do these days. It was great.
So what was the next move for you. You left, or it left you. What exactly happened?
DH: Well the job was advertised. The General Manager’s job, or the Chief Executive Officer, I forget what the title was that was advertised. I was told that it was opened up so that there could be an opportunity for everybody to get the top job. I applied for the job. Geoff Conrad got the job. I stayed with him for about three months while he settled in and then I went down to the then Glen Waverley Credit Union, took that on as General Manager down there. There was about three-quarters of a million dollars in assets when I went down there and when I left about six or seven years later it was about nine million and we had three or four branches. Those things were great in those days. Geoff got the job. He lasted and then he did what he was there to do, and that was to build this building, then after that he resigned and moved somewhere else and Mike Hildebrand came in.
Did you ever hear anything about the Mother’s Day Massacre?
DH: What is the Mother’s Day Massacre?
When they dispensed with the services of Geoff Conrad.
DH: I was on the Board at the time.
How come Ian Larsson actually had to do it, although he wasn’t Chairman?
DH: No he wasn’t Chairman, that’s quite true. What had happened was that it appears, and this is only hearsay I can’t only repeat hearsay, this is all going back a long time, we were sitting around the Board table and there was a report on AFCUL or a meeting. Evidently Geoff was a bit exuberant, a bit happy, had a bit too much to drink perhaps, I don’t know. Ian took the man to task at the Board meeting table and I think somebody moved that there be an investigation into the General Manager’s department and that is how it all started. So they had Nigel Westerby and the chap that died, not Wilson, lived in Nunawading.
Not John Woodhams, he is still around.
DH: No. John is still around. This bloke used to be the Chief Executive Officer of the Florid Institute, he was a great bloke. Anyhow he was on the Board, he was invited to come on the Board. Very clear headed, objective logical bloke. He and Nigel Westerby did the investigation and it wasn’t long after that there was a special meeting and it was put forward that Geoff’s services be terminated.
You were on the Board were you?
DH: Yes. In fact it was in this room that the decision was taken. This is where we used to have the Board meetings, in here. So those things happen. Look what can you say, you are dealing with people. They are not all Directors, none of us were Directors for that matter. A lot of us learnt by trial and error and a lot of people were hurt, unintentionally in many ways. But then again, because we lacked some of the skills and the competency levels that you’d expect of today’s situation, there were people who were appointed that should never have been appointed. Things got under people’s guise that you would never have realised. No-one would have realised that Geoff was an alcoholic, but that was it. Those things happen. It is just unfortunate.
The building of this building, do you remember when the decision was made?
DH: No. I wasn’t involved in that in anyway whatsoever. I was down at Glen Waverley Credit Union. It was mooted. I mean we were at Albert Park. But the actual planning for it and the construction of it, etc., that was all done by the Board. I am pretty sure Geoff would have been heavily committed to that.
What about some of the real estate, I mean for instance when Warburton burnt down and Jubilee Lake was mooted? Were you involved in that at all?
DH: Yes, I was on the Board then. I wasn’t actually one hundred per cent in favour of Jubilee Lake.
Whose idea was it in the first place do you think?
DH: I think it was Graham’s to be honest. I think it was Graham’s. But it started off, probably the initial embryonic concept was something which we could have coped with, but it just got out of hand. They employed a bloke who was a value-added expert of some description, I forget his name.
He wasn’t the fellow who was a Manager here for a while?
DH: No. Leon Turner, yes. Leon Turner. He was the bloke. He expanded the concept to the point where, in my opinion, it became impossible. The results found out that, but what can you do, another million dollars down the drain. Same with Teledata, the computer system, another million dollars down the drain.
Were you on the Board when that was passed?
DH: No.
What do you think was the problem with that? It was a fairly good system and such like wasn’t it?
DH: No, it wasn’t a good system because it was not a data base system it was what they call a hierarchal system and had been developed in South Australia in the mid-1960s. It had just been added too and added too. But when it came down to a system that the credit union could use, it was the only one that was available. So we all jumped on the bandwagon I suppose.
What about the Canadian side of that? Did you know much about that?
DH: All I know is that it was a bit of a fiasco, as far as I am aware. There was someone over there supposedly working full-time on the development of a new system which syphoned off a lot of funds, but that’s it.
When you went back on the Board what was the main issue? The Stabilisation Fund hadn’t been set up at that time had it?
DH: No. I was Chairman of the Stabilisation Fund when that was going.
I notice looking through some of the Minutes there, in 1971, you were Manager then, that Don Harvey was invited to come down from New South Wales to speak about the proposed Stabilisation Fund there.
DH: Yes. Well that was how we always got things done. If anybody had any information or knowledge or skill you always employed that person or contacted that person to come and share it. That is how we grew. We had no resources. We had no financial resources. We were only fortunate to have physical resources. Even in New South Wales, Don Harvey, Les Robinson, everybody in New South Wales and in Victoria had the same problem. We had a big area to cover, tremendous potential, but you didn’t have the resources to develop it. What you had to do was to turn three men into four, or two men into three, whatever the case may be. That was always done.
I suppose it is nothing to do with Victoria, it is just that Don Harvey was the original Director of the New South Wales League who went to Canada and investigated the Stabilisation Fund there. He came back and wrote up the Equitable Mortgage which started off the Stabilisation Fund. He started off the central banking system as well when he got back. It was only later that he went to work at the League, and he was only there very briefly. I just wondered if they used him going round selling it or what?
DH: You know when it came down here we developed it. As always, when anything was mooted there had to be a committee formed so that you could see that it was carried through. So we had a Stabilisation Fund Committee who developed it and it became a prepared document that went to the Annual General Meeting which was approved then it became the Stabilisation Fund.
The Stabilisation Fund and the central banking system, were they tied together at any stage?
DH: No, they were two independent, separate things. The central banking system was going twelve months of more before the Stabilisation Fund came into being, that’s from my memory.
Did you have any difficult getting the money, getting the credit unions to invest the money?
DH: Oh yes. Definitely. I mean it was always difficult. They had the same problem as everybody else had, you know you only had so much money to go around. Whilst the Stabilisation Fund was there for everybody’s benefit, no-one would accept the fact that they were going to ever have to use it. Some of those that were most reluctant to contribute in the long run were those that had to use it because of defalcations. I mean you can’t cover everything, you couldn’t.
The Stabilisation Fund in Victoria was more effective than the one in New South Wales in that there was never any member who lost money.
DH: That’s quite true. But it changed from the Stabilisation Fund to the Reserve Board. As things grew, as credit unions grew and the number of defalcations started to come up, well then we started to find there is a need for the Reserve Board or the Stabilisation Fund, call it what you like, to support those credit unions that have had defalcations.
Another area which I meant to ask about, I meant to ask some of the others about but didn’t get much of an answer actually, were you involved in any of the decisions taken towards trying to run an insurance service through the VCCA on the head policy arrangement?
DH: Well we did have a considerable upheaval when CUNA Mutual-CUMIS and Stan Arneil were sort of given the flick. We came in with CIC. CIC was then the recognised insurer, which went against the grain with a lot of people in both States, in all States. You had a tremendous division between CIC-CUNA Mutual-CUMIS, Stan Arneil versus the rest type of thing. That is the only thing that I can remember at that stage.
Did you ever have a head policy here?
DH: No, not to my knowledge.
That is really what the argument was in New South Wales. The fact that CUNA Mutual-CUMIS had the head policy which apparently didn’t live up to expectations.
DH: Well it flowed through from those investigations. I think Les Robinson started the ball rolling when he did the investigation. He let his Board know and then it came through to AFCUL and then Graham came back and told us what had happened. That is how we started down here.
Were you involved in AFCUL?
DH: Only from the point of view of attending seminars or General Meetings, that’s all.
Seminars? You were a delegate, yes. Were you at that fateful meeting in Wollongong where they refused Stan Arneil the chance to speak?
DH: I was. Very disappointed. But then that’s politics. The man had done his share of building the credit union movement up. There is the old saying, you mightn’t agree with what he is saying but you have got to respect his right to say it. It was a disappointment I thought. Still as I say I am not a politician and I find these things a bit of an anathema.
Well they argued of course up there that it wasn’t political, that is purely on financial grounds that they terminated the insurance policy.
DH: Well that would be true. The reason for Stan not gaining entrance to the meeting was definitely political. What they did was truly correct, in my humble opinion, that they got the best possible deal they could for the credit union and in doing so they kept the money and control here in Australia. Whereas CUNA Mutual-CUMIS were definitely overseas controlled all the way. They had their own little pets who got subsidies and this that and the other thing, which other people were paying for. That is not to say that the other side of it didn’t occur either, but at least it was here in Australia and we controlled it.
There used to be Policy Holders Committees, was any credit union that you were involved with were you on any of those committees?
DH: I was at the Chapter meeting one night when Stan Arneil was there. It was probably weighted 50:50, fifty per cent CUNA Mutual-CUMIS and fifty per cent with the VCCA’s policy. It was a very interesting meeting I can assure you. Stan was a good speaker. I had my moments I suppose. We came out and we agreed it was a draw. But I had a lot of time for Stan, I respected him. I didn’t hit below the belt, I don’t believe in that. If you can’t win on logic don’t debate.
Yes I was very sad he wouldn’t be recorded on this project.
DH: So am I.
He will talk over the phone, but he doesn’t want to be recorded he said.
DH: Well he is suffering from cancer, isn’t he?
What again? He was. I had heard in fact that he had problems again, but I don’t know how true this is.
DH: It’s a shame. I mean he is bitter. Let’s face it that is unfortunate. There are a lot of people throughout the movement who would be bitter because of what was done to them, politically.
Of course he was upset about what happened with the credit union he was managing after that, the Shop Distributors and Allied. They wouldn’t back them up in the end when they were in trouble.
DH: That’s right. No, they wouldn’t. But as I said, what can you do?
Well of course their attitude was they had disaffiliated and then they wanted them to bail them out. But apparently originally the union was going to bail them out.
DH: It was sad. A Reserve Board situation there, I am afraid.
Indeed. Members lost money.
DH: Well a lot of members in the State of Victoria would lose money, if the truth was known.
I suppose if you look at it that way the Shop Distributors and Allied was all over wasn’t it? It crossed State boundaries, that credit union.
DH: That’s right. There are a lot of credit unions now perhaps that even though the Reserve Board is doing its best to try and prop some of them up, there have been a few rather large defalcations and rather large losses. I mean I am not talking about $100,000 or something, I am talking about millions of dollars.
So what other issues are there that we haven’t discussed yet that you remember?
DH: Well I think you have covered most of them. The stamp duty, the tax. The CUNA Mutual-CUMIS that was a very savage issue. I should imagine from my point of view up until 1980, the major areas there in the latter part of it would have been the unfortunate situation with Jubilee Lake and Teledata which come down heavily on the credit union movement in Victoria. In essence I suppose, in Australia. I think David Dinning was a great loss to the movement here in Australia. I respected David, I reckon he was a great man. Might not have had what some people consider to be the up and going of a lot of people, but in my way I reckon he had the best approach to the whole thing. He was a co-operator. He always fought and did his best for co-operative effort and I reckon that is what the whole thing is about anyway.
What about your involvement with YCW?
DH: Minimal. On the Board for a while. Tried to get them to develop a business plan. I was prepared to do one for them. One Sunday we did a two hour stint, but it didn’t develop. Some of the things that we did put forward, this is going back in the early 1970s, was not to be centrally located but to open up branches somewhere. Lo and behold I think about six years later they did. Mostly it was Ted Long, Frank McCann, Paul Rankin, Danny Armstrong, all the old blokes.
How about Father McCann?
DH: Charlie? Haven’t seen Charlie for ten years.
Was he related to Berry McCann?
DH: His brother. Charlie was down our way, was at Templestowe Parish. A bit of a character, Charlie.
I am interviewing him for the YCW on Thursday.
DH: Are you really.
Yes, he is on the list. Did you have much to do with him?
DH: No. I’ve sort of, the last ten years, have been trying to build up my own public accounting practice. It is not an easy thing to do, start from scratch. But the last three years I have been able to take things a bit easier.
When did you first meet Ted Long?
DH: Oh crumbs, about 1956, 1957.
What was he up to?
DH: Talking about co-operatives, actually. What else did he talk about, Ted? God bless him. He was a great man. He worked hard for people that man. He was an example for a lot of people in the YCW, that’s for sure. His efforts to work for people and not for himself.
Were you ever involved with the YCW building society at all?
DH: No never. Not with Bob Maybury or Terance or any of those. Leon was. Leon was on one of the building societies. I expect he was on two or three of them.
Yes he was working for them when he was actually managing here.
DH: Well it was some way of getting paid wasn’t it. As I told you we had nothing except good intentions really. We had no money, no facilities, only good intentions. That is probably what made it succeed. It was simple, you see. Simple things succeed.
What about the other YCW activities? I mean you were involved with the YCW credit co-operative wasn’t you?
DH: Only to the point that we wound it up.
How did that come about?
DH: Well it just wasn’t functioning. It was on my recommendation that rather than have it dormant, that we wind it up. At that stage it was recommended to the Board and away we went. Slowly but surely it was wound up. There were a lot of small credit unions that were around that were relying upon one or two people and they just couldn’t cope. So we just did what we could.
Do you think too many small credit unions were started?
DH: Yes. But then I don’t think you would have had the same co-operative spirit in Victoria without having them. I mean it was an essential part of it, in my opinion. Whilst the statement was get big or die, I think there is a lot of small credit unions around that are still surviving and doing it quite well.
Well they get just whatever they want out of it?
DH: That’s right. They get out of it what they put into it. There is one up here at Mitcham I think which is still running. I don’t think it is a million dollar credit union, I couldn’t tell you. Everything was measured from about 1975 onwards in dollars, it had to be.
Do you think the credit union movement has done its job? I mean it has changed along the way. Do you think it has done its job or it is not a credit union movement any more?
DH: I think it has done its job. I think that in the initial stages the budgetary facilities that were offered to a lot of people helped mums and dads and their children get through school. Mums and dads to live. The loans that they had for the white goods and some non-essentials as well as essentials I think was tremendous. The banks in the late 1950s, 1960s, early 1970s found it very difficult to allow overdraft or personal loans. But now of course that whole thing has gone and the credit union isn’t a credit union now. It is a financial institution which is allied with building societies and banks. Whilst the people are there, they are there as just numbers, not as they were in the initial stages where you might have an Annual Meeting and you would get seventy per cent of the membership there. People were interested. Now I think, as I mentioned before, the power base of most credit unions is in the hands of the staff and the Board, which might number in the order of round about twelve or fourteen, may be twenty people. They control the career path and where everything is going. With all due respect I believe that the salaries that are paid are far, far too high for the competency levels and skills that are there. I mean you have got men earning $100,000-odd a year, which puts them up with the Prime Minister. I don’t know that their levels of competency and skill are that great.
Which Prime Minister?
DH: Dear Bobby?
I was wondering about levels of competency puts them up with which Prime Minister?
DH: Oh God yes. I would say Bob Hawke was a good Prime Minister. I am a bit disappointed he is not there. However, that is another day, another story.
I am not going to get into an argument with you over that one.
DH: No, am not interested.
Oh I am indeed, very much so but we can’t afford the tape. We have got to keep to the matter in hand.
DH: No I think the days have passed when co-operatives or the credit co-operatives are there for the purpose except as I mentioned before.
Any regrets about all the work you put into the credit union movement?
DH: Not at all. No. God I got more out of it than I put into it.
You put a lot in it.
DH: I made a lot of good friends. Met some lovely people.
Did it affect your health, all the work that you did, and your family?
DH: Of course it did. But that is the price you pay. I wasn’t the only one. There would have been lots of men, and in many cases women, who would have sacrificed their own personal home life for the sake of the credit union movement, or in those days the co-operative movement. We enjoyed it, otherwise we wouldn’t have done it. Because you would never say that you did it for the money, it was never well paid.
End Tape 1B: 4284 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.