ANSWCU 69: 25 JULY 1990: INTERVIEWER RICHARD RAXWORTHY: TALKING WITH GRAHAM HUMPHREYS
I will ask you, where were you born, and when?
GH: I was born 3 March 1941 at the Mater Hospital at Crow’s Nest in Sydney.
Where did you grow up?
GH: I spent all my early life on the North Shore being resident at Wollstonecraft.
What do you remember of your parents, what was your father?
GH: Fortunately my parents are still alive, but my mother never worked and my dad was just a labourer, with no specific qualifications. He was either driving a delivery van or working in a factory over the period that I can remember.
In what sort of ways did he influence you, do you think?
GH: I think that my influence came mainly from my mother rather than my father. My dad was always at work and I relied heavily on mum in the early days. I think that I am grateful for her training so far as she was, and is, a very compassionate woman and a loving person. My dad was the provider and we didn’t see too much of him and he didn’t have too much influence on my life.
Where did you go to school?
GH: I went through the public school system and I did my infants and early training at Lady Hay’s School at North Sydney and from there I was fortunate to go to North Sydney Boys’ High School.
What did you like and dislike about school?
GH: I liked the companionship, I liked the sport. I wasn’t a particularly good scholar. I passed my Leaving Certificate and I was very pleased to get out of school. I didn’t like the authoritarian side of things, but I liked the social content in school and was particularly involved in various types of social organisations, hobbies clubs and sporting activities in various official positions.
What sort of sports and what sort of hobbies?
GH: On the sporting side of things I was very involved in cricket, I played grade cricket at Sydney Boys’ High School. I also refereed for Rugby Union for the grade competition whilst I was there. They also instigated baseball into the school and we had the first inter-school competition between North Sydney High and the Sydney Tech and that was around about 1955. As far as the hobbies are concerned, I was President of the Hobbies Club and had a particular interest in 00 gauge railways at that time. I can remember we used to have an annual fete which was the highlight of the social calendar and everyone would go home I would be there from five to twelve just playing with trains around on the side and that, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I used to have a train set of my own, a Marquin train set at home, but it was very very restricted and to think I had control over these hundreds of feet of track was something I will always remember. I was always very disappointed when the fete was over.
What was your first job, did you go to work straight away after school?
GH: Well, I got my Leaving Certificate in 1957 and before the results came out I went into a casual job at Woolworths in Crow’s Nest just to give me a bit of spending money because we weren’t a very rich family. I always did a paper run once a week, a local paper run, whilst I was at high school jut to give me a bit of money. I found that when I was at North Sydney Boys’ High School most of the people came from up the line and always had spending money and I didn’t like being a person who didn’t have it. So I used to get about thirty shillings a week at my paper round. I started, as I say at Woolworths just to fill in until the exam results came back. When the Leaving Certificate results came out I didn’t get a Teachers’ College scholarship. I never thought of anything else other than being a teacher. Right from infants school I think set my heart on being a teacher without really thinking about it. So when the scholarships were announced and I didn’t get one, I stayed on at Woolworths for a while and was offered a cadetship within Woolworths but I declined that. Then the second lot of scholarships did come out and I was successful in getting a Teachers’ College scholarship to Sydney Teachers’ College. I declined that in so far as I liked the idea of getting a little bit of money. Then I got a job in a shipping firm, Nelson and Robertson, which was based in Clarence Street within the city. That was my first exposure to the commercial world. All in 1958 that would have been.
How did you find it, what was it like? Did you enjoy it?
GH: I enjoyed it, but I found out after a couple of months there, I suppose in retrospect I was being a little bit exploited, without being egotistical, but I had a little bit more ability than the other people and I was being capitalised upon. I was going to the Maritime Services Board one day, which a shipping firm had to do the import and export paper requirements and the requirements of the Customs House. Anyway I was at the Maritime Services Board and a chappie down there said, ‘You’re really wasting your time there, you could come down here. I can arrange an appointment.’ So he arranged an appointment. I didn’t know anything about the public service then, Richard, I didn’t know any of it. Anyway I went and did an interview and was offered a job with a bit more money than I was getting. Having got the Leaving Certificate I came in at a grade higher than what they were paying. So I accepted that and I thought this was great and I really enjoyed my job. I worked very very hard. I was a foundation member of the MSB Credit Union down there. At that stage I didn’t know what a credit union was. I know that the people, and people that I have come to know since then, Tom Blood’s name comes to mind and Pat Duggan was the other one down there, I’m not quite quite sure on that Patrick somebody. They really got stuck into me about putting my money into the credit union. I wasn’t old enough to borrow but I needed some sort of a guarantee. I was a very good saver because my sister and I had been brought up that way. I suppose in retrospect you could call me a little bit of a miser, but I was very careful with my money, put it that way. So I became a foundation member of the credit union which must have been founded round about 1959 or something. As I say I worked very hard and one day I looked round and discovered that no-one else around me was working and I thought I’m not going to work either, but I only lasted about two weeks with that. Then I decided to undertake a night course in accounting. I went to tech and started off my accountancy degree.
Do you remember the inaugural meeting of the Maritime Services Board Credit Union?
GH: No, I don’t think I went to that one. I don’t think I was involved in that one. In fact I didn’t know anything about it. All I know is I had a little deposit book and each pay-day, which was every fortnight, I used to take my money religiously along to Pat Phelan, he used to stamp it and I used to watch the balance going up and I was paid 6 per cent interest.
Was that pay-roll deductions or not?
GH: No, that was across the counter.
Across what counter and where was that?
GH: The credit union office was in the top drawer of one of the volunteer officers, I think. We’ve come a long way since then. But I think that is where it was. I think it was actually a cash tin that Phelan used to have locked up there too. I was always very concerned that I wouldn’t get my money back. I can always remember that because naturally there wasn’t statutory guaranteed funds, or nothing like that, not in those days.
I can understand, it was all very fraught then. Do you remember how that credit union, as it was then, did you take an active part?
GH: Not an active part at all, and quite candidly I didn’t know anything about it. I all I knew was there was an enthusiastic group of people trying to get everyone to join a credit union. That is about the extent of my knowledge. There was no offer of any pamphlets but they kept assuring me that the money was safe and that I could get it out whenever I did leave. When I did leave I got my money out and I got my interest credited and I suppose that was a bit of a relief from my point of view.
They never managed to get you along to a Chapter meeting of any description?
GH: No, not at all and once again it was never mooted. Perhaps I was a little bit young, because I was only seventeen at that stage. Perhaps I didn’t have very much to contribute, I don’t think I did. I hadn’t been very worldly at that stage.
So what was your job at the Maritime Services Board?
GH: I worked in the wharfage section and I was responsible for the collection of the charges associated with goods that had been stored on the various wharves around Sydney. That was my job. They had to pay those otherwise they couldn’t get the stuff. If I didn’t collect the money, I just calculated what they were up for, how many days it had stayed on the wharf, and what the wharfage charges were. Then I used to sign a form and they used to have to take that to the Cashier and until that was receipted they couldn’t go down to the wharves and pick their stuff up.
Was this a counter job or a sit-down office job, or what?
GH: It was a counter job. That was my first exposure to any members of the public, mainly dealing with Customs agents.
How did you like that?
GH: Yes, I thought it was quite good. I particularly liked dealing with some of the young things, female that is, young things that used to come in from the Customs agents and they probably got a lot better attention than some of the other people should have.
Where did you go next?
GH: After doing my accountancy for twelve months I felt I would be better off doing an accounting type job, it would be better experience for me if I was doing what I was learning about at night. So I applied for a job as Assistant Accountant at a motor dealer at Mosman, Norman G Booth, which was a public company. I got offered the job, but I must admit I didn’t like the attitude of the General Manager there so I knocked the job back. But they rang back in about a week or so and said they really wanted me. I told them I didn’t like the attitude of the General Manager, the Secretary actually interviewed me then the General Manager. So I was called back in and the General Manager kind of convinced me that he didn’t mean what he said, or something like that. So I started there and spent about four and a half years there.
Were you in a credit union while you were there?
GH: No. They didn’t have any credit union facilities and there was nothing remotely like a credit union around the area. I did all my banking through the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney down at Mosman, Spit Junction it was. They looked after me all right and I got a housing loan, I bought a block of land and I got the loan from the CBC. They were actually the bankers for Norman G Booth so they spoke highly of me.
So what was your next involvement with credit unions?
GH: Well, I graduated from there. With credit unions? Sorry I was anticipating what you was going to ask.
Graduated from there to your next job then.
GH: I went from there to be a Company Accountant at a public company, another motor dealers, John A Gilbert, which were over at Camperdown. I spent nearly two years there. I quite enjoyed that. I worked pretty hard but unfortunately in the motor game, looking back on that fifteen years of it, all aimed towards the sales staff rather than the accounting staff. But during that time I had no exposure to credit unions. There was a bit of a re-organisation going on within the John A Gilbert group of companies, which I could see from an accounting viewpoint wasn’t quite what I liked. There was one of the first take-over bids, not successfully completed while I was there but there was a youngster called Ron Brierly. John A Gilbert was very heavily into ?????? and very asset rich and Brierly came and it was only probably by good luck rather than good management that they weren’t taken over. But I could see that there was the potential danger there. There were a couple of re-organisations which I didn’t like, mainly because they affected me, so I had a look around. I saw an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald for a Secretary/Manager’s job at a credit union at Matraville and I applied for that job. I got interviewed at the New South Wales Credit League at their old offices in Burwood Road, Burwood, which has subsequently been burnt down. I had an initial interview with Malcolm Samuels. I can always remember going out to that interview, I was still working at John A Gilbert, and I was asked into Samuels office and the first thing he did was to take his tie off and his shirt and I thought, ‘Goodness gracious me.’ Those of us that know Malcolm Samuels, know he never looks you in the eye and I thought, ‘What have we got ourselves involved in here?’ But I can honestly say that that interview was one of the most satisfying I have ever sat through. I came away from that quite convinced that I was the person for the job they were offering and I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t got it. I got onto the short list, a short list of three I think it was. They actually wrote to the Matraville Credit Union, as it turned out to be, and three of their Directors, Dave Palmer, Les Schutt and Stan Hendriksen came out in company with Ron Swanson and Les Robertson. They interviewed the three of us and that afternoon they made a decision that I was the successful applicant. That was back in 1972, 1973, something like that.
Is Dave Palmer still around?
GH: Yes, Dave Palmer is still around, he was the Chairman when I took over. I was soon made aware by some people in the industry of his reputation. He had a number of Manager’s heads under his belt, to put it kindly.
At what stage was he on the Advisory Committee of the League? Was that before then?
GH: That was before then, that was back in the ’60s. But he had been very active in the City of Sydney Chapter and also in the educational courses for credit unions around the place. But he actually wasn’t in any volunteer position other than Chairman of the Matraville Credit Union when I took over in 1973.
Did you know anything about this, did he tell you about the occasion when he criticised the Board for their running of meetings?
GH: Yes, I have heard about that and I have heard about how he got rid of an auditor at the Association, and I know how he has challenged people on the floor at the Annual Meeting. He was quite a radical, Hitler-type person.
He didn’t manage to get up at the next election, I understand?
GH: No, well that might have been democracy at its best, or something like that. But I’m a firm believer that you can only take people as you find them and I am prepared to give everyone a go. Dave was Chairman of our credit union from 1973 until about five years ago and my relationship with the Chairman and General Manager of this organisation, we had nothing but a convivial beneficial relationship which I think benefited this credit union. To my way of thinking for a man like Dave Palmer to change as much as he did, compared to what I heard he was like, must take something more than most people have.
Has he been interviewed as part of your oral history?
GH: Yes, he forms the basis of our oral history because Dave Palmer really is synonymous with the Matraville Credit Union.
I ask because he is on the list to be interviewed as part of the Association’s oral history. But I am not the person to do the interviewing, Clarrie Murphy has appointed himself to do that interview and he hasn’t done it yet. But Steve Birt thought that Dave had finally died.
GH: Well, his wife died about eighteen months ago and he has moved up to Terrigal within the last three or four months and I have never seen him happier. He is coming down on Friday to our thirtieth anniversary celebrations. As a matter of fact he is staying overnight with us on the Friday night and I am dropping him back home. He is quite happy where he is, he doesn’t want to move, but I think it is important he come down here on Friday.
Well I’d better get Clarrie on the track.
GH: Well I spoke to Tom Kelly yesterday, he is actually writing today I gave him the address, because sometimes you need someone in your own era who you have been involved with and have got respect for to contact them.
Well Clarrie is the one who put it on his list.
GH: Well Dave has got a lot of respect and time for Clarrie too, so I think that would be a very comfortable relationship.
So when you were here, where was the office and what was the situation of the credit union when you first arrived as Manager?
GH: Well you have got to realise that I had given up a pretty secure job that I had been in for nearly ten years. Dealing with a public company which had certain standards and being an accountant I had certain stipulations and things to do. I had been told a little bit about the predicament that the credit union at Matraville was in, but that little bit I had been told turned out to be about 20 per cent of the true position. The credit union was really in trouble.
They weren’t in the Common Board were they?
GH: No, this was before the time of the Common Board. But the credit union when I took over had a $90,000 deficit. They had their debt problem. They had a lack of direction for Boards. They had trouble between Management and Directors. Their provision for doubtful debts was well below what any prudent person should have expected, there was no statutory requirement at that stage.
Had the deficit been budgeted for or was it just operating in deficit?
GH: I think going back, my readings of credit unions, the New South Wales Credit Union League started deficit budgeting and everyone else thought well if this was good enough for the League it was good enough for credit unions. So it had been planned, a planned deficit if you know what I mean, but unfortunately this one got a little bit out of hand. They didn’t know how to spend money, not always on a cost benefit basis. What happened was, most of the Board meetings I attended with Les Robinson, Ron Swanson and Geoff Cambridge, who was filling in at Matraville Credit Union when I started.
He was an administrator?
GH: No, not at all. He was on secondment from State Works Credit Union, which is now SGE Credit Union, and he went from there to the Association. Then he went out into his own business doing what is commonly called consulting, some people say it is making a million. But Geoff and Ron Swanson and Les Robertson came out with me and they virtually told the Board that they were in trouble, that they had no future unless everything was left to the new management. They had at that stage the Stabilisation Fund at the League and Matraville Credit Union was the first credit union with the dubious honour of being placed with the assistance of the Stabilisation Fund. It virtually meant they funded the deficit and gave me the liquidity to go on. So I thought, well if they were going to support us like that well we’ve got to do everything there. We certainly did. It took a couple of years to change the Board, to get the Board which would be best for the future of the credit union. That was probably my first involvement with politics within the credit union movement. It certainly paid dividends and I don’t think the credit union could have survived without that assistance, going right back all those years of the Stabilisation Fund and also with the support of Les Robinson, in particular.
Dave Palmer stayed on as Chairman at that stage?
GH: There was no stipulations as far as the financing was concerned, except that interest rates could not be changed without the approval of the Stabilisation Fund, and no capital expenditure could be undertaken.
Who was it who was Chairing the Stabilisation Fund at that stage in the proceedings?
GH: It might have been Brian Charlton, going back to that stage. I am not quite sure.
1974 to 1982 he was Chairman.
GH: Yes, that would be about the stage.
So what year was that, do you think?
GH That was in late 1973 early 1974.
Yes, well, according to the record, John Francis Richards was the opening Chairman but I don’t believe he did anything?
GH: Well, no I can’t remember Francis being Chairman, I can only remember Brian. Brian was connected with a credit union out in the southern suburbs of Sydney at that stage.
It is clear that you knew him quite a while ago because you still call him Frank?
GH: Just before he had his hair dyed. I can tell you a story back in 1974, when tax exemption for credit unions were announced down at West Point Casino, by Frank Crean. That night round the two-up table all these credit union people encouraging thrift by throwing their money onto the betting table of the two-up and there was Frank Richards in the middle with his clip throwing the coins up to. He wasn’t very happy at the result. I always remember Frank doing that.
Did you have much to do with Brian Charlton at that stage as Chairman of the Stabilisation Fund?
GH: No, I think that was the first time that I ever really dealt with Brian. I have dealt with Brian on and off over a long period of time. Brian was purely only the Chairman and as far as getting involved with the everyday operations I had very little to do with him in that capacity. He was just, I was going to say a token Chairman but I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, I just mean that he was a Chairman of a committee of the League. I dealt mainly with Ron Swanson, I had a lot of arguments with Ron, I did, and with Les Robinson.
Did you have a lot of arguments with him?
GH: With Robbo, no, I got on very well with him and I respected Les because he respected me. We got out of Stabilisation very, very quickly. It only took us two or three years because quite candidly with my accounting background it was just good sound management principles that were needed and some decisions to be taken on the chin. Perhaps my Board had no other alternative, but they accepted. We had a very happy relationship. When we applied for excusing from the Stabilisation Fund we didn’t have any problems.
Where were the offices of the credit union then?
GH: At that time we were called the Matraville Credit Union, the credit union had started off as the ICIA&Z Employees Credit Union, which was an in-house credit union. Then it became a mutual credit union servicing the factories and subsidiary companies, factories around the area and subsidiary companies of ICI and became Matraville Credit Union. When I started in 1973 the offices were in a little training hut down on the ICI Botany site at Hillsdale, round about half a mile from where our head office is at the present time.
So what was the major change after you had taken over and were out of Stabilisation?
GH: Well I think that the first thing that we really did undertake as a Board and Management team was the education of Directors. I guess that was where I first got interested in the real education, perhaps it was the old thing that I wanted to be a teacher and I got involved again. I was very, very anxious that my Board become fully aware of their responsibilities and what they were doing, and the learning curve. They were good in that regard, they were very receptive.
End Tape 1a: 4365 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.
ANSWCU 69: 25 JULY 1990: INTERVIEWER RICHARD RAXWORTHY: TALKING WITH GRAHAM HUMPHREYS
You were just telling me about the Directors and keeping the Directors informed. Did you become involved with Credit Union Executive Society (CUES) or the Australian Institute of Management, or what happened?
GH: I was a President of the Institute of Credit Union Managers, I took over from either Helen and John McIntyre at one stage.
What was it actually called then?
GH: The Institute of Credit Union Mangers and that was a New South Wales-based organisation. Graham Benson approached me and said that he was pretty keen on the Credit Union Executive Society, which was an American-based organisation, and that their Chief Executive, Mike Welsh, was coming out and would I meet with some of his colleagues in Victoria plus a couple of others from the other States down in the old Melbourne Hotel. That was about 1978, I think it was. At that meeting there were about fourteen people, I was a member of the Credit Union Executive Society at that stage as well, we decided to form the Australian Council of the Credit Union Executive Society. It was out of that a steering committee was formed and I became Secretary/Treasurer of that organisation. Then in 1979 we ran the first Australian Conference for Credit Union Managers in Albury, which was the forerunner to the ones that I run there for AICUM.
Why Albury?
GH: Well having a look through the different venues at the time, one was Mildura, one was Ballarat or Bendigo, Bendigo I think, and the other was Albury. Most of the CUES members were in Victoria, but we wanted to have access to those who wanted to come from New South Wales, so Albury was a prime situation. As I say, out of that meeting in Melbourne we formed a steering committee to form this Australian Council and they conducted the initial elections and I was elected; with Graham Benson as President, Lloyd Hawkins as Vice-President, Ingham Smythe, Howard Betts and myself. There were five of us, three from Victoria, one from New South Wales and one from Queensland. Our first function was to run the first Albury Conference and years later we are still running conferences down there. What happened from the CUES side of things, the Credit Union Executive Society, was that the American organisation had a restriction that you had to be in an affiliated credit union, affiliated with an organisation that was registered with the World Council of Credit Unions, namely AFCUL in Australia, otherwise you wouldn’t qualify for membership of the Australian Council of CUES. So we went to America in 1979 and put a case towards the Board of CUES and they thought about it and I went back in 1980 to New York and gave another presentation. They couldn’t change their rules because affiliation is very important over in America, but out here we had seven hundred different leagues or different associations, we had at least four in New South Wales and two in Victoria. So we decided because we had membership in the old Managers’ Associations, there was one in New South Wales the Institute of Credit Managers, which I mentioned before I was President of, and another Managers’ Association for credit union managers in Victoria and one in Western Australia, while these members weren’t affiliated with AFCUL. We decided we would form our own Institute of Credit Management. A steering committee was set up for that first and to cut a long story short, after a lot of negotiations and writing and talking and visiting, in 1981 we formed the Australian Institute of Credit Union Management and told the Credit Union Executive Society in 1980 that we would not be continuing as an Australian Council. From there we have gone to the situation now where we have got about five hundred members Australia-wide as the basis of the Australian Institute of Credit Union Management.
How much is that involved with the Australian Institute of Management?
GH: It is not involved at all.
The other side of it was, that John McIntyre was involved, wasn’t involved with the Australian Institute of Management, wasn’t it?
GH: That is entirely separate. John McIntyre was involved as a member of the Australian Institute of Credit Union Management in the Annual Report’s Award of the AIM of New South Wales. John has accepted that and has become our representative and has performed very well and actually was Chairman for the last couple of years of the Annual Report’s Award. As I say that is a management organisation of which a number of credit unions and individuals are members, but it is not exclusive to credit unions and it is nothing to do with AICUM.
So now the situation is what? You run it from here full-time. Is anybody else involved with you?
GH: Well the Australian Institute of Credit Union Management is a national organisation looking after the professional needs of credit union professionals throughout Australia. It is controlled by a volunteer Board of Directors, as within a credit union, each of who stand down each year, each of who can re-nominate, and the election process is open to the whole membership. The National President is elected in a separate election, conducted at a similar time and the only qualification is after the President has been elected, each State has to have one representative on there before any State can have two representatives. In further answer to your question, the Institute operates a Secretariat out of this office here at the Dependable Credit Union, this is the official registered office of AICUM and my secretary divides her time, half paid is paid by Dependable and half is paid by the Institute. She looks after the day-to-day running activities of the various courses and professional facilities that we offer to our members.
How did the Institute of Credit Union Directors start?
GH: Well I as involved in my capacity, I was also at one stage Education Co-ordinator for AFCUL. We had a Joint Committee.
Have you any idea what year you started as Education Co-ordinator of AFCUL?
GH: It was when Kevin Murray was CEO.
Between 1974 and 1979 then?
GH: It is towards the end of that, because Peter Timmins came after Kevin and I was there at the same time. I used to conduct residential courses in credit union management at the University of New England. I used to work closely with Professor Meredith up there.
Who started that?
GH: We, as an Institute did, the Institute of Credit Union Managers it was. We perfected that, getting very good response and that. We still conduct these courses now throughout Australia under the auspices of AICUM and we use Professor Tom Ballantyne as our main economist in the course. That aside, we ran four or five of these financial management courses very successfully up at Armidale on the campus of the University of New England. Then I was approached, and I think it was from Kevin Murray but I’m not quite sure, that I actually ought to be doing something similar for Directors. When I think about it, it might have been Kevin because Kevin has always been very aware of the need for education of Directors, and I agree with him there. So I had a look and I put together a course similar, kind of a shortened version of the five-day residential course that we were giving to our managers. It was conducted very successfully over two or three occasions up at Armidale. One of them was in the middle of July which is unconducive to attending Armidale, snow on the ground and everything, but we had about eighty-five Directors there. Now out of that particular course and few people, people like Renata de Mille, who used to be a Director on the Shire of Sutherland Credit Union, I think it was the Energy Credit Union at that stage, and Bruce Robertson from ESOL and Elton Ray from Torrens, approached me and we got together and I set up a number of steering committees. It was out of that the Institute of Credit Union Directors actually evolved.
Ron Birch wasn’t involved at that time?
GH: No, Ron wasn’t involved at that stage. Ron was still a Director at the Sydney Water Board Credit Union, but he wasn’t involved in that. Ron has only got involved since they have had a full-time Secretary. He was in the latter years.
Were you involved with the Institute of Credit Union Directors after that?
GH: I used to go along and sit in on their committee meetings and that. I keep a very close contact. I think it is important that Directors and Managers are learning the same things, or at least looking at the same types of things. It is ridiculous one Institute going off and learning something which is completely obtuse to what managers learn. So with firstly Bruce Robertson and then with Ted Macness and then with Elton, I have had a very close association with each of those three people who were Presidents for the very reasons that I have just enunciated. I know now that with Ron Birch, he and I have a very close association and I like to think we as an Institute help them. I know that I have spoken at a number of the conferences, I was involved in the last national conference in Canberra. I think it is beneficial to both organisations.
What has your involvement been with the League, the Association, after the early days with the Stabilisation Fund?
GH: That was a compulsory involvement too. I suppose when that go by the wayside it was a weight off everyone’s mind. After that the Common Board was formed and it took a different process. But since that time I have been involved mainly in the education and training side of things. I was on that committee for a long while when it was in existence.
Any of the Chapters?
GH: No, I deliberately kept out of the Chapters. I used to send my second-in-charge and I didn’t like to cramp his style, so I kept out of that side of things and that is the way it has continued. I have been Chairman of the Code of Ethics Committee ever since it was established at the Association. I volunteered for that because I felt it was very, very essential in what credit unions were about. The social conscience of that was all very well, but unless we were being ethical in all the things we were doing, we might as well forget all about our social conscience. I’ve been very active with that and was very happy with the outcome of the deliberation. This was probably one of the best committees, not just because I was Chairman, that I have ever worked with on a volunteer basis. That was made up of Managers and Directors and it was an excellent committee. Each member contributed greatly toward the final outcome.
What were the main issues at that committee?
GH: Well, our main issue was to get a code of ethics drawn up that could be utilised as something that could be marketed to the general public, to parliamentarians, to our members, members of credit unions, to other credit unions, as a code to which was not only a bit of paper to which we subscribed too, but a code on which we could ‘hang our hat’. Something like the Motor Traders’ Association, which has been very beneficial and that was held up early in our discussions, that we have something like that, that was respected by the public as a whole. We had good support to the voluntary code and I put up a motion a couple of years ago at an Annual Meeting and it was actually made mandatory and I was very happy with that. It was a shame it couldn’t be made mandatory on a voluntary basis but there were always some credit unions that wouldn’t subscribe for in their minds probably very good reasons. I was very happy when that actually went through. Since then we really haven’t had any abuses of the code. We have set up a tribunal now, so everything is in place to deal with any problems that should arise. I think this is very important nowadays because of the nature of the Government that we have got in control at the moment insofar as they are very, very big on the self-regulation aspects of what is happening to individual organisations that are under their auspices.
The code that you actually brought about, this has been talked about for quite a number of years, hasn’t it? I mean in the early days of the credit union movement in Australia I see that it came across from America as a ‘Truth in Lending’.
GH: I think the ‘Truth in Lending’ is different insofar as that was something that was legislated for in the States. I think this is more a code of behavioural conduct and kind of enunciating on the ?????? what we all feel inside. But it is a little bit more than that, it is getting away from that real muddily feeling that actually comes across. I remember in Perth, I think it was, back in 1978, I was trying to get some sort of a code of ethics there and perhaps if they had of got something there too, some of the events over there might not have happened. That is said a little bit tongue-in-cheek. The problem I had with the code of ethics is that a lot of people hide under an umbrella of credit unionism when they should be operating as a credit union. I am hopeful that some of these things that are expounded in the code of ethics will come home to someone in those types of organisations and they will say, ‘That’s not what we are all about.’ Now if that achieves it in one credit union throughout Australia then it has been worthwhile.
What about other issues that you have been involved with at the League? Insurance, for instance, when you first started did the Matraville Credit Union as it was then stick with the League right through the process of changing insurance from one organisation to another?
GH: This credit union when I started wasn’t involved with CUNA Mutual and we had nothing to do with CUNA Mutual. I think that probably has to be associated very largely with Dave Palmer and his involvement around here. I know about it, but I really think that I wasn’t close enough to make a judgement on that. Probably Dave is, it is one of his favourite hobby horses and when he talks to Clarrie he will probably expand on that. Dave wouldn’t have anything to do with CUNA Mutual when I first started with Matraville. Over the years we have always got quotes from CUNA Mutual, and I keep saying CUNA Mutual because that obviously is the problem that was referred to back in those days. But we always get quotes and do whatever is the best for our credit union and subsequently that means it is the best for our members. They don’t care if we change our supplier as far as insurance is concerned each year, if we get a better deal.
So you don’t necessarily go through the League?
GH: No. I am a firm believer that the Association, or the League, is there and they are there by the grace of the credit unions. Now if the credit unions choose to use some of their services because they are the best available and the pricing is the best available, or for whatever reason, that is OK. But if a credit union decides not to use the services well there should be no aspersions cast upon it or anything like that. I think it is just like a commercial enterprise, you do whatever is best. More so in a credit union because you have to do what is best for your members.
What about your dealings with the various Presidents, Vice-Presidents and Directors? Have you ever had Directors from Matraville at the League, you haven’t have you, not really?
GH: Not on the League Board. No never been on there. The only one who I had dealings with was Dominic Irrevelo, he was Loans Officer when I first started here. We parted company very soon after that. But Dominic I think at that stage was on the Association Board. This credit union had never nominated anyone in my time here to the Association Board. But I guess that I, as an individual, have had probably as close as anyone association with each of the members of the Board over those years, from the various things that I was involved in. Yes, I think I would have done, particularly the Presidents over those years.
Well were you involved with Ken Miller?
GH: Oh yes, I have been involved with Ken Miller.
How was he different to the subsequent Chairman of the Association, or League as it was then? Kevin Bain and Bill Howe?
GH: Who said he was different?
I am not saying he was, I am just asking for some form of comparison.
GH: Well I think that each of the Presidents that I have been associated with over that period of time have had a different style of their own. I think the first one that I was involved with was really Jack Coyne, was it Jack Coyne or was Jack AFCUL.
AFCUL but Jack Coyne was Vice-President at the League.
GH: I really didn’t deal closely with Ken as President. I have dealt with Ken over the years. But I think Kevin Bain was about the first one I had close contact with. Kevin Bain was to my way of thinking a very fair man, a man that always weighed up both sides of the coin, but probably too nice a guy to be President of the Association. I say that in the nicest possible way because I know that Ken has done a hell of a lot of work and is till doing a hell of a lot of work there too. Of course you have got to have a bit of a ruthless streak in your President. I am not saying that Bert has got a ruthless streak, but I am saying that it probably does help. I am just trying to think Richard of who was in between.
Bill Howe?
GH: Oh well enough said.
Did he have a ruthless streak?
GH: Oh I think Bill has too. Bill does it in a nice way, but he is a very political-based man. I think the majority of people don’t realise what he is doing until he has done it.
Well were you involved at all in the negotiations for re-amalgamating the various associations of New South Wales?
GH: Not officially. But I think, I like to think, that I had a lot to do with the Central Association, at least talking to them. I take this from a different viewpoint from what you probably have seen before, because I went out of my way as President of the Institute of Credit Managers at that time to talk to the Central Association, at their Annual Meeting. Even though I was viewed as an Association representative, I think that I kind of kept them on side with what we were doing. I know that the Central Association finally were forced into amalgamating with the New South Wales Association because of financial troubles, but at least there were talking lines with someone who knew something about what was going on. I am sure that at the end of that I wasn’t viewed as having any ulterior motive. Indeed, I didn’t have any ulterior motive except getting credit union people together. It really didn’t matter to me whether they were a member of this Association, Southern Association, Northern Association or our League.
Did you know many people from the Southern Association?
GH: Yes. I knew quite a few when Peter Gadd was down there at one stage.
Then of course on the other side of the fence was there was Tom Hanks and Jim Wardell.
GH: Yes, I knew both of those. I didn’t have a great deal to do with Jim, but I had a bit to do with Tom.
Bill Griffith?
GH: I sat on the Credit Union Advisory Committee with Bill Griffith.
How long were you on that?
GH: Seven years. That was when David Horton was Registrar.
What were the issues during that period?
GH: Oh, the same issues as now. Bonds, interest rates. I know we did a paper on Bonds which wasn’t very different to what you have just done now, the only difference being that this one is accepted.
So what is the situation on Bonds now, do they want to do away with them or would they rather keep them?
GH Oh well, I think it is an each way bet. They want to keep it because that will mean that the taxation exemption becomes easier to keep, but the field of membership as they are going to call it now virtually to my way of thinking means that Bonds are non-existent. I’ve got no problems with that. As long as everyone operates as a credit union and respects the other credit unions, terrific, no problems at all.
So what other issues can you mention? Was research set up when you were on the Advisory Committee, at the beginning?
GH: Not at the beginning, at the end it was.
Were you involved at all in the lobbying for the setting up of a Reserve?
GH: No, I wasn’t involved at all. No I leave that to the politicians. Definitely not involved with that. The only thing I will say about that too is thank God for Syd Einfeld and his foresight in regards to that because I think it has just proved dividends. The other thing I really do think about that early era, and the early era is different because of my involvement, I used to clash with the Registrar, David Horton. As an accountant I couldn’t understand how, when you are making a bottom line loss, that you were required by the Registrar still to provide money to go in reserves, thereby increasing your loss. On three or four occasions I had violent arguments. Now I did see David before he actually left the Registry and said to him, ‘Well I was adamant that I was right and you were wrong, and I still think accounting technically that I was right and you were wrong, but I applaud you on the way that you went, because that enabled credit unions to be so much in front.’ For instance Victoria at this particular stage and I am on the Reserve Board now and I am privy to the figures of the various credit unions and their reserves. Indeed, everyone really knows that the average of our reserves, average credit union reserves in New South Wales were over 8 per cent, for a ??????? above 10 per cent, which must make for a stronger organisation now. I think a lot of that is attributable to David Horton and his insistence upon creating reserves even when we didn’t have money to put reserves away. I would just like to record that.
What other issues were there on the Advisory Committee?
GH: The Advisory Committee doesn’t have a lot of responsibility insofar as it is a statutory constituted thing. It only, dare I say, acts as a rubber stamp to a lot of things that have to take place. Really, I think looking at the reports we used to get from the Reserve Board as to what credit unions were doing or what were under correction and if there were any subsidiary companies being established. Interest rates were by far the main ones, because it was quite volatile towards my end of the term there. We used to be meeting every couple of weeks just to see what was going to happen.
Well what about the time, well you were still on the Reserve Board.
GH: I have only just started on the Reserve Board, I am only a new face. I was only appointed in April.
You would know a few of the faces on there?
GH: On the Reserve Board, you mean as far as Directors are concerned? Yes I am very friendly with the whole other six of my fellow Directors.
John Prescott is there isn’t he?
GH: Yes John McIntyre is the President and John Prescott the Vice-Chairman and there is Alec Sayler, Phil Noakes, Bill Pittstock, Peter Byrne from CBOA and myself.
How often do you meet?
GH: We meet once a month.
How long does the meeting last, is it routine?
GH: Oh no, it is not routine. It is a Board of Management and that. We meet for half a day and we have got a meeting on Thursday afternoon, starting at twelve o’clock and it will take all afternoon. No we are very, very particular about the things we look at and we examine mainly the reports of our staff of the Reserve Board as to their recommendations as to what is happening in the various credit unions. We are very, very protective of the fund that has been established over the last ten years. It has served us well and we are very keen to ensure that nothing is done to undermine anything that might be detrimental to credit union members in the years to come.
Does the Board have to OK any credit union going under direction, or can that be done without the Board’s approval?
GH: No, that will be done by Board ratification, generally on the recommendation of staff.
Well, you have only been there a little while but is there ever some doubt whether they should go under direction or not? I know you can’t discuss individual cases.
GH: Oh, I would think that there would be no occasion when there is any doubt in the mind of the Board. Because if there is any doubt, I think they probably wouldn’t put it under direction. The Board has got a very big responsibility insofar as it is protecting the funds of the credit unions, the savings of credit union members.
End Tape 1b: 4441 Words: 1 hour 45 minutes.
ANSWCU 70: 25 JULY 1990: INTERVIEWER RICHARD RAXWORTHY: TALKING WITH GRAHAM HUMPHREYS
There is another area which we haven’t yet covered, the computerisation. You were involved in the computerisation through the League. The setting up of the FCS and such like, were you involved with that at all?
GH: I was aware of it, but I wasn’t actually involved in it. I was very concerned because this credit union, Dependable Credit Union, wasn’t on computer when I came here, it was on a punch card system. It seems like forever ago. But then we went from there to batching our work and utilising the facilities of the Commonwealth Bank Head Office in Sydney. Now that was all very well and it worked OK, except we were running about three weeks behind. So if you were working on a member’s balance you would have to take the last status report, anticipate what pay-rolls were coming in, ask him if he had had any deductions, go back and just check a couple of status reports and probably add in the date and perhaps you would be somewhere near the balance. So I was very keen to get involved with some form of computerisation, when the FCS system did become available. I had had a look at it over in Perth when I was over there before it was actually purchased over here by FCS.
Was you aware that Les Robinson was involved at that stage?
GH: Yes. We were one of the first to go on. We were on a bureau base because we were only relatively small then. It was great and I guess I have been one of the biggest supporters of FCS over the years. I just say thank God for them and that they had that available because it certainly gave us a rolling start on a lot of other financial organisations.
You say you were on it straight away, what about your hardware?
GH: Well, we were on a bureau base, so the hardware was actually housed over at Burwood and we were linked by LAN-line to them. We’ve had our own in-house computer for about ten years, I think too. The same one.
Was that AWA or GCS?
GH: AWA Sequel. We have been very happy with that. We’ve had excellent service. Written it out of our books. Still got plenty of capacity on it. Still able to hang a few extra terminals off it, or any other peripherals that we want. I don’t see any need in the immediate future to upgrade, even though every computer company would like to see us upgrade.
What about ATMs?
GH: No, we are not involved in ATMs at all. We did a survey with ATMs but we don’t even have Readicard. We are a very basic credit union here, we are a savings and lending organisation and we feel as though we do that very well. We have Visa Card available if anyone wants some form of plastic which gives them access to Readiteller or Cashcard terminals. We have got about seven thousand members and we have got about five hundred Visa Cards available, even though they were offered to all our membership. We’ve got control over who has a plastic card insofar as I approve all applications for plastic. I think we have only written off one bad debt in the Visa over a period of about five years now.
To go onto your involvement with AFCUL. What has been your involvement with AFCUL over the years, apart from attending Annual Meetings?
GH: You mean on the volunteer side of things? Oh I was the Education Co-ordinator of AFCUL going back in the old days when they used to be based at Flemington and that. Then I was Chairman of a Joint Education Trading Committee which was comprised of AFCUL representatives, three, and three from the Institute of Credit Union Management. I think we did a fair bit in setting the training processes in vogue which have subsequently been run by other organisations throughout the continent.
Were you involved with the Foundation at all?
GH: No.
The World Council?
GH: No. I’ve stayed off the Directors’ side of things, either at an Association level and at an AFCUL level. I feel as though there may have been a bit of a conflict in my managerial status that I held in the various organisations. I have never stood for any of those particular positions.
Did you have much to do with Dermot Ryan in the early days at all?
GH: Oh, we had a few spars and I think probably most people did.
?????????
GH: No. Though I remember seeing him in his underpants when he was up at the AFCUL Conference at Surfers Paradise one year. But that is another story isn’t it. I think most people have seen Dermot at one stage or another in his underpants. No I think Dermot Ryan did a lot for the credit union movement and he certainly was a very skilled politician and achieved a lot for us. Perhaps not in the way that I would go about doing things, but he achieved the results, so I would never criticise him for what he did.
Do you have a copy of the paperwork from the Newport School? You weren’t at that School?
GH: No, that was before my time. That was back in 1966 or something like that. One of the staff that was here at the time, and Dave Palmer prior to that was at that. I think there was one about 1965, wasn’t there Richard?
Yes, I think the first was in 1965, or it might even have been late 1964.
GH: You might be right too.
Because they claim, several people claim, that the first Newport School was not run by AFCUL it was run by the League, the League at that time.
GH: That is exactly right. I have no quibbles about that.
As a matter of fact the first discussions about the formation of AFCUL apparently were at the 1965 Conference which was run jointly by the League and CUNA Mutual.
GH: I think you are right in that too.
Well, I’ve got lots of people to tell me anyway. Merv Kelland, Stan Arneil.
GH: Yes well, Merv too.
Did you ever meet Stan Arneil?
GH: Yes, I not physically but verbally threw Stan Arneil out of our office down at the old ICI. The first time I ever met Stan, that would have been 1973, he started thumping the table, coming in without an appointment. I didn’t like his manner or what he was carrying on about, so I asked him to leave.
You no doubt had the backing of your Board?
GH: Oh well he wasn’t really involved at that stage. I think he had been through the insurance business and he was virtually a player without a guernsey at that stage.
You wouldn’t have had anything to do with him when he was Manager of Shop Distributors and Allied Credit Union would you?
GH: No, but this credit union picked up a few credit union members that were disillusioned after the aftermath of SDA Credit Union. I think that was an unfortunate situation as far as credit unionism was forgotten for the sake of a couple of conflict of interests or power struggles between two different organisations. It was unfortunate.
Les Robinson was actually saying that he didn’t think there was anyway Shop Distributors and Allied could have been a successful credit union from before it was formed. In fact, he advised against its formation.
GH: Yes, I can imagine Les doing that too. You’ve got to be very careful with the trade union-based credit unions too. We had a bit of a problem here, in this one, because there was a bit of a conflict between a couple of Board Directors. We had a couple of Directors and the decisions they were making went a little bit further than the Boardroom and the kind of personalities and positions they held outside the organisation did reflect on some of the decisions and discussions they had around the Board table. But we overcame that. Got rid of one of them. Well we suggested that he didn’t stand again, in a nice sort of a way.
Les Robinson’s disagreement about that sort of thing, his viewpoint was that in the case of Shop Distributors and Allied there wasn’t a close enough Common Bond to warrant it being successful. He didn’t think it would be successful. Of course he is saying that with hindsight, but nonetheless.
GH: I am sure if Les said it now with hindsight, it would have been no different to what his feelings were at the time. In that regard I think when people work in the same environment and that, they have got a closeness and that too. But when they are a member of a trade union which could be diversified as all over Australia they haven’t got that relationship. Back in those days when SDA was going too, Common Bonds were a lot more important than people seem to think they are nowadays.
I suppose you didn’t have anything to do with the CUNA Mutual and Stan Arneil really. I just floated in various quarters that Stan was just the meat in the sandwich as far as the Americans and the movement here, the League.
GH: I wouldn’t make any comment on that. I would leave that to those who were involved with him at the time. It is all very well in retrospect to make valued decisions, but I don’t think in that particular issue I would like to express even a point of view.
You were involved with Les Robinson quite a bit though, weren’t you?
GH: Oh yes and I had a great deal of respect for the man, his ability and I thought that he was so far in front of his times, for what he did for the League at that time, it is just incredible. It certainly stood us in good stead over the years.
The central banking system. You’ve always stuck with that?
GH: Yes and wouldn’t think of going anywhere else. One of the Association things that has benefited this credit union enormously in good times and in bad times. I think it is a marvellous thing and thank God we have it.
What about the Supply Service?
GH: Oh, the supply is there and we use it as it suits us. I think sometimes they get out of hand. They forget what they are there for too, and they get a little bit profit orientated. I suppose that is very hard in a commercial organisation when you are selling that sort of stuff and also when people are looking for each particular section to pull their weight. I can understand that. But we’ve voted or showed our disapproval sometimes with our feet. But on the other side of things, no-one can get near them so it is pick what you want and use them as required.
Do you think EDVEST is a good system?
GH: Well the results certainly show that it is a good system. Obviously there is a market there for it. We are not members of EDVEST because we had a look and did a survey of our membership and I think our membership wouldn’t benefit from it. So we decided not to get involved with it.
What about the Bridges one?
GH: Oh we use our own investment advisers and we are very happy with the unbiased advice that has been given by them. We have had them for about ten years. Until proved differently, we will be quite happy to stick with the ones we have got.
Do they use the Norwich software?
GH: I don’t honestly know, you mean our investment advisers, I wouldn’t know what software they use. I know we get a report out every three months on what is going on, what business is going on and how the investments of our members are going. So that is all I am interested in. I don’t really spend a lot of time looking at that, because if the members aren’t happy they would probably be the first ones to let us know. Especially these days.
Do you think that the Association should provide more co-operative services, and if so, what?
GH: Well this is probably not a very timely time to ask that, when the Association is virtually going out of business.
Do you approve of that?
GH: No.
Well, what is wrong?
GH: Well we have a position in this particular credit union insofar as we feel as though the dealings with an intermediary is essential to establish a close relationship between our credit union and the supplier. We feel as though with the advent of the Association’s going, we will be too remote and the people that we are dealing with won’t really understand what credit unions are all about.
Would your credit union be prepared to join the Association which has been re-registered now?
GH: I couldn’t speak on that.
What is your attitude? Do you think we should consider it?
GH: I think all options should be considered. When it affects your membership and that, I think it should be considered.
You were aware that another association has been registered within the last few weeks?
GH: Yes, sure.
They are at it again.
GH: Oh, I don’t know whether that is fair. It is a democratic society and if the Independent Association want to form an association it is everyone’s right to do it. The same thing happens in Victoria too. I don’t have any problems with it. The only problems I have is their motives, that is all. If they are forming an association as an alternative to provide better service for members of credit unions then I’ve got no problems with it.
They would have a job to compete on that basis though wouldn’t they.
GH: Obviously they think there is something to be offered, otherwise they wouldn’t form the association, the other association. Obviously with the bigger size credit unions down in Melbourne, down in Victoria, they obviously prefer that way don’t they.
Whereas in Queensland they don’t seem to want to do anything at all.
GH: No, well they have made a valued decision up there and obviously they have got their reasons for doing it. I respect everyone’s democratic right to do whatever they want for whatever reason they want. They are quite entitled to do that and they are quite entitled to tell everyone else what their reasons are. I don’t like the idea when people come out and speak against it, what we are talking about is Project Renewal and you virtually blacklist them and I feel very uncomfortable with that. I think people have to respect other people’s points of view and at least listen to them and try to understand. I would just like to add that this credit union has pledged to Project Renewal too, regardless of what I have just said. The feelings that we have got we have pledged our support to Project Renewal.
Yes, but you are merely saying that it is people’s democratic right to dissent if they want to.
GH: That is exactly what I am saying.
I hope nobody can have any problems with that.
GH: A few people do.
Do you think that the credit union movement has gone wrong in any way?
GH: Oh yes, I think the credit union movement has gone away from what credit unions were originally formed for. I am just concerned that the credit union movement is getting away from the grass roots of what they were formed for and in about five or six years someone will get together with their work mates and say, ‘What about pooling all your money in here and lending it out to our fellow workers at a cheap rate of interest?’ and all of a sudden credit unions will be re-invented. Because what credit unions are doing now, or then, won’t be serving the purpose for which they were created.
You could be Les Robinson yesterday. He said exactly that.
GH: Well, Les doesn’t write my scripts, but I know how Les feels. I am just a little bit concerned about what is happening to credit unions. They have got really away from what they are all about, from the grass roots. Even though it has been a hectic phase too, but I think we should get back to what we do best. Get back to our knitting and concentrate on doing that properly. Forget all the other peripherals and other things and trying to be a banker to all things. Be a banker to everything to our members and that and let other people do the other things. They are the things that are fraught with danger. If you have a look at the experiences overseas, it is the people, not only credit unions, other financial institutions, savings and loans, banks, they get into trouble because they are doing things that they don’t really understand. They are involved in off-shore lending. They are involved in commercial lending and people are going bankrupt, bad debt provisions. It is because they are getting involved in things that they don’t really understand just for the sake of getting money out. It is not right. One of a credit union’s main aims is to advise their members about their financial involvement, about how it is going to affect them if something does go wrong. I guess small business is the same thing. In New South Wales, everyone is trying to realise their life-long ambition with the redundancy or with the golden handshake they are getting and the next thing they know, twelve months later, two years later, they have got to go back into the workforce at a lesser income and do a job that they don’t like doing at a lesser wage, just to exist. If someone had of stepped in there and said, ‘Hey Richard, you have been a process worker all your life, what do you know about running a coffee shop? Do you realise this is the overheads, this is the profitability in a cup of coffee and that. You are going to have to sell so many cups of coffee to get anywhere near the income you are getting at the moment and keep you in the style that you are accustomed to. Here is the mortality rate in coffee shops.’ I think someone has got to take the responsibility to do that, and we in this credit union do do that. We would rather not be party to anything like that if we thought in any way, shape or form the individual didn’t have the expertise to carry the load of what he wants to do. I guess that is a part of credit union philosophy, as I see it.
I guess I wouldn’t be an historian if I had taken your advice, eh.
GH: I think you must have had something built in there to start with. You have been trained as an historian, at least you know what is required of you. With a coffee shop proprietor, he won’t get trained it will be the school of hard knocks.
So you think that is the future of credit unions?
GH: That should be the future. If you mean doing what they traditionally should be doing and getting back to their knitting. You have a look at some of the biggest credit unions in New South Wales, CBOA and QANTAS, that is all they are doing. They are doing quite well. A lot of the bigger credit unions now are getting rid of, have got rid of, a lot of the non-profit arms of their organisation. They went off and tried to be everything to everyone, now they realise, hey the bottom line is not as good as what they expected or should be from the asset base, so they are going back and rationalising. It says something to me.
Right. Do you reckon that the balance of saving and credit is right at the present moment, or is more towards credit than it should be?
GH: When you say credit, you mean borrowing to buy things? Well, I think we have got to change with the times. When you and I were young we used to save for the things that we needed. But when the media in the ’80s, late ’70s and ’80s, without any thought just pushing, pushing, pushing, go out and live for today, forget about tomorrow that will take care of itself. Don’t worry go and buy now. When all the media are saying that, you can understand how the people, the young people particularly, go out and do that. That is the generation that we are faced with now. So I have had to change my thinking as far as evaluating people’s needs. When they buy a new home now they have got to have carpets, blinds, two cars, washing machines and everything now, they don’t want it tomorrow. Whereas, when I was growing up you would save and you would sit back and think that was worth while saving for, because that television we’ve got there cost us six months savings but it was worth it. I do contend that now in the ’90s, and this is something I feel very strongly about, and going back to my ethical involvement I did speak about at the Institute of Credit Union Directors’ seminar in Canberra early this year, I think the ’90s are going to be the era when we go back to the basics. I think people are becoming more aware of the home comforts and the home values. I think that things like the AIDS epidemic has said stop the world and hey we are not in a promiscuous society now anymore. There are certain things that we have got to do. I think there is going to be more of that and I think people are going to be more conscious of the home life and less conscious of having a good time outside that environment. I hope so anyway.
Is there anything that we haven’t covered that we should cover in this interview?
GH: Well the only thing that I would like to say is my experience overseas, Richard, which goes back a way. I think I went over in 1976 to a World Council Meeting in Colorado. When I went over there I used to think that Australia was five or six years behind what was going on in America. Now on my visits since then I think we have gone ahead in some things. Computerisation was the first thing that really hit home. A couple of people who were involved in FCS have gone over to Los Angeles and that and done very well, thank you very much and good luck for them. But I think that the problems they are facing in America, I was there four weeks ago, five weeks ago, are exactly the same as we are confronting here at the moment. They have got a lobby from the banks over there which is virtually trying to get rid of credit unions. Trying to get rid of their tax exemption first and foremost and secondly get rid of credit unions. They have got exactly the same problems as we are experiencing here. There are bankruptcies. They have got exactly the same problems we are experiencing with bad debts and bad loans, commercial loans, off-shore loans as I was mentioning before. What is happening over there is happening here today. In a couple of meetings I had over there, kind of reinforces that. I think the days of learning from overseas have gone. The other thing I say is a bit parochial insofar as the expertise that we have got within Australia as far as experts to talk on various facets of management, not only credit union management, but management, certainly leave the so-called experts overseas for dead. We have got a bank of wealth of knowledge here, and the conferences we run at Albury certainly substantiates that. I think it is up to us to really get involved in this training, particularly with this new training levy, and make sure that the staff who work for us and in the credit unions are exposed to that education. Having said that and having got the staff to go to those things, I think the credit unions and the credit union movement as a whole will be better because of it.
There is one thing that Neil Runcie of course raised with me the other day, and this is to do with the Historical Co-operative and it is also to do with training. I told him what we were doing down there, saying the co-operative was getting the stuff together both documentary material and also the magazines and the Annual Reports and so on, developing a credit union library and archive. He said, well why didn’t that become, why can’t it become the basis of a research institute where people can research actual papers. Go back to what has happened in the past and carry things through into the future in research. In that way become more knowledgable in credit unions, in their work in credit unions, and eventually lead to a form of qualification. Not necessarily operated as a permanent institute, but as a resource as a library, that sort of thing.
GH: I bet Dr Runcie offered to run it too, didn’t he.
No, he is an economist in the city.
GH: I have got no problem with what Neil says in that Neil is an academic and Neil used to be very close down here. But he has graduated and gone up three or four flights now.
He has been very ill. He is now an economist. He has been ill. He got in a car accident and has had back trouble for the last eight years now. He hasn’t been at the university very much at all.
End Tape 2a: 4393: 1 hour 30 minutes.
ANSWCU 70: 25 JULY 1990: INTERVIEWER RICHARD RAXWORTHY: TALKING WITH GRAHAM HUMPHREYS
GH: Neil was discussing one afternoon about establishing an institute, that is why my facetious comment about him. I am sorry he isn’t well.
Well he is a bit better now. He is back on deck but not at the university, he is in the city.
GH: I see what you mean. I have no problem, I think it is essential that the Australian Credit Union Historical Co-operative be set up if for no other reason than we record what has happened to this wonderful credit union movement. But Neil’s problem fell down and this is what I have experienced so many times. I have been involved with CAEs and TAFE, educational facilities, the Australian Institute of Credit Management, to try to have modules linked in with them on education and training, specifically linked to credit unions. It falls down invariably because we can’t guarantee bums on seats. When you look at the credit union industry throughout Australia there is not a great deal of people involved and from that point of view I don’t think there is going to be enough people to guarantee that. All I suggest is that with education is that they be trained in basic areas of management, which is not greatly different to what is necessary in credit unions. As far as setting up an institute is concerned, an archival institute, I just can’t see the need for it.
Well this is where I come in, because I have been researching in this field on a paid basis you understand and it is like a brick wall. When I first arrived I was brought in by the Historical Co-operative in the first instance, but I got no co-operation from anybody. I was taken into Tom Kelly’s credit union rail staff and they didn’t give me access to anything for the research I was on. I asked my questions and they answered them and we recorded them and I went away and that was the end of that and that was put by. So the next time I was called in was to Sydney Credit Union and Dermot was dying. Now they gave me access to the credit union material at Sydney Credit Union, I couldn’t record Dermot so I had to find the material around the place. They were helpful there. But when I tried to get material from the League, the Association, or AFCUL on their affairs, people who had been involved in AFCUL, they just didn’t want to know. They wouldn’t let me in at all. They would fob me off with a copy of the last two Annual Reports or something like that. There was nothing. So I went to the Mitchell Library, practically nothing in there. The only person who ever put anything in the Mitchell Library was Tom Kelly. He had put his magazine in there. One other credit union, there was a few copies of the magazine there and incidentally it was called Credit Union News which made me think that the League had got their stuff in there, but no it wasn’t. It was just an individual credit union had called it that and Quest, Tom Kelly had again sent the Quest over there. Other than that there was absolutely nothing on credit unions in the Mitchell Library. Now I went to the inter-state library and in there there were a few old books like Wolff on People’s Banks and Coady, but other than that there was absolutely nothing on credit unions. You couldn’t find books on them. I found one book that was written by Skully and Crapp recently and I found also Neil Runcie’s edited one of the unions in the South Pacific. Beyond that there was absolutely nothing. Going around asking people would lend you their individual copies, highly prized, of the odd thing to give you a basis, but there was no library that you could go to and get the background of credit unions, there just wasn’t any. You know it was like trying to work in a vacuum. Eventually people did let me see things and every time I saw a book I would ask could I borrow it and I would get information. But it was really hard work. Now how would it be for younger people to try and get a grounding? How would it be for them to get the information to start statistical analysis?
GH: Impossible.
Well that is my point you see. So there has got to be somewhere. It doesn’t need to be an institute, but we are hoping that that information will be available at the Historical Co-operative.
GH: So do I.
But, it is a waste of time if nobody uses it. The only use of history is to continue it. It starts in the past but it ends somewhere in the future. If you don’t push it through there you are wasting your time. That is what I am saying.
GH: I have got no problems with that. Well I think what is being done through the Credit Union Historical Society is OK, but it is like all things, people don’t see it as being of great importance, do they. You’ve experienced that.
I asked for the library when I went to the Association and all right there is a library, but it has got newspapers in, that is all for the last six months.
GH: Newspapers and fleas. I mean on the newspapers, not sitting around the library table.
I was wanting to walk into a place and find all books on credit unions, and that sort of thing, but there wasn’t anything, honestly. So I don’t see how people can do genuine research and be genuinely educated on credit unions if there isn’t even at least one library where they have all the resources. I personally have joined as a volunteer, you understand, as well as being employed at various times by credit unions. Tom is working towards having a library there as well, but we have only got a room and I wonder if anybody cares, that is all.
GH: Well, now Richard, I think I will continue my interview with you, where was I up to.
You had just finished, didn’t you?
GH: Yes, that’s good, that’s right. I couldn’t resist that mate. You’ve got to be to be an historian haven’t you.
Have we got anything left that I should ask you? Have you got any memorabilia to donate? Well thank you very much Mr Graham Humphreys.
GH: Thank you Richard.
End of Tape 2b: 1111 Words. 30 minutes.