25 SEPTEMBER 1991: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO GREG O’DOWD
I will ask you Mr O’Dowd, where were you born and when?
GO’D: I was born in Brisbane on 17 June 1933.
You grew up there? Whereabouts in Brisbane?
GO’D: At Greenslopes. The old house is still there. There were six children in my family, I have got four brothers and a sister. I have worked in the Commonwealth Bank for forty-two years. I have been in the Army Reserve for thirty-five years and have had the rank of Major for twenty-five years of that time. I have been a Parish Director of the League for about ten years. I was Treasurer of the League in its formative years. I am the only twenty-five year delegate to the Credit Union League of Queensland.
When you were quite young, a child, what sort of influence did you get from your parents then, do you think?
GO’D: A very strong influence. We have always been a very close-knit family, we have been very fortunate in that. Mum and dad were honest as a rock, dad was a policeman but he had to retire early through ill-health. Then he owned a post office and store at Ogmore in North Queensland near St Lawrence, north of Mackay. He shifted into the hotel business at Kin Kin, near Gympie on the Sunshine Coast and Nobby, which is twenty-eight miles west of Toowoomba, by which time the family had grown up and half of us were of high school age. Dad had owned his own house at Kelvin Grove but he couldn’t get into it during the War due to Landlord and Tenants Acts and sorts of wartime restrictions. We finally got into our house and moved to Kelvin Grove were we stayed until I married. I married a Red Hill girl. I worked at the Commonwealth Bank at Red Hill for ten years. We bought a house in Bardon, only about a mile from Ashgrove. We stayed there for ten years. Then we shifted back to Ashgrove where I have been for twenty-five years.
Where did you go to school?
GO’D: At St Lawrence’s College at South Brisbane. During the War the Sister of Mercy’s Boarding School in Gatton. They had children out in the country during the War years and mum and dad thought that was the place for us to go.
Where did you first hear about credit unions?
GO’D: In the Commonwealth Bank. The Commonwealth Bank has one of the early credit unions. I joined the Commonwealth Bank after leaving school on 9 February 1949. When the credit union first started I sort of recognised its value and joined the bank credit union. It was all done through the office mail system. There was never any really serious representation in Queensland.
Have you any idea what year you joined?
GO’D: It would have been the first year it started. I haven’t got that date here, but I have got some documents I can look up.
I can look that up too.
GO’D: I joined Commonwealth Bank in 1949 and started at the Fortitude Valley Branch. I was called up for national service on 8 August 1951, when Korea was on. National service numbers in Queensland started at 1/700,001 and I was 700,047. With forty-eight men in a platoon I somehow managed to make the first platoon of the first intake. I then served in the Army Reserve for thirty-five years. I was then commissioned in the Medical Corp which was quite unique, and I was promoted to a Major in the Medical Corp at thirty-years of age and I had twenty-five years as a Major in the Medical Corp. I was always interested in administration and I ended up as a Senior Instructor in Administration for the army in Queensland. I taught administration for twelve years at the Commander Staff Training Unit, or the Officer Training Group at Wacol, which is now the Reserve Staff College. They have a flashier name these days.
When you joined the CBA Credit Union, did you stay in that?
GO’D: I am still a member of the CBA Credit Union, I have kept my membership. So I have probably been a member of that for thirty years or more. Father Lyons of Bardon Parish read about credit unions in his seminary days and he made a mental note that he would like to have a credit union in his parish. So just after my wife and I were married he started forming committees to discuss the forming of a parish credit union. He had a great range of expertise available, as you get in a parish or community, and on the opening Board he had Tom Purtell, who he appointed Chairman. Tom Purtell is a very famous name in Queensland. He was Chairman of West Rugby League for twenty-odd years and they named Purtell Park after him, one of the major clubs in Brisbane. In fact they were runners-up in our current premiership. Tom is now an old man, but he was a great Chairman. I don’t believe anyone ever left the Board of Bardon Credit Union voluntarily, they died or ill-health finally caught up with them, because he was such a great Chairman. We had meetings that went for thirty minutes or forty-five minutes and we did the full business. Tom had been Chairman of the State Stores Board, he bought all the equipment. He went to meetings every day of his work-life and he couldn’t stand wasting time, he kept you on the topic and we had a dozen laughs every meeting. As soon as somebody said a word out of place we would laugh and tell them they couldn’t get away with that, they ought to know better. It made the meeting something you sought to go to because there was camaraderie of a great sort. We had a Bank Manager, Bill Cuddy of the ES&A Bank. We had Frank Burco, who had previously been a Commonwealth Bank officer but now was a business proprietor. We had Jack McCall of the Taxation Department. We had Jim Olloson, a Chartered Accountant, Frank Falconer, a Barrister with the Crown Law Office. We had another policeman, Reg Cownall, and myself from the Commonwealth Bank. I had army experience and army administration. We had that many points of view it really had to be a success. While we haven’t grown, haven’t sought to grow, we have sought to serve our parish. We tried to start other credit unions, we offered the surrounding parishes if they would like to form credit unions we would give them membership of ours. We would give them fifty to eighty members and then we would set them loose, but they didn’t see fit to take up our offer. So we provide quite our few of our members our services over the year. We don’t have a restriction on Catholics or anything like that. We have tried to apply the three-legged stool, the loan for a reasonable need, the ability to repay and the character of the borrower.
Do you have anything to do with that Christian Credit Union that doesn’t charge any interest nor pay any?
GO’D: It has a different system. I met that through Bishop Ralph Wicks of the Anglican Church who knew of my interest in credit unions and pointed out the Christian one, which is right opposite the Medical School in Herston. It is on the corner of Wakeman Street at Herston. I have visited them on four or five occasions. They don’t actually charge interest. I would have to do a little bit of research and get back to you on that one.
I have interviewed Mr Cutmore this morning and he has told me all about it. I just wondered if you had any experience of them that is all.
GO’D: No. I know generally their philosophy and their membership, but it is not something that is going to attract the general population so it will never grow. But I am sure it will last there forever. They have a very socially-based programme that every time they have a meeting they have bowls and they have supper and the families come and there is twenty children in the hall at every meeting. So it is a real family endeavour. They also have a wide bond, they haven’t restricted it to their own little group.
You have to be a Christian but you don’t have to be of any particular denomination.
GO’D: That’s right. That covers 90 per cent of the population I think one way of another. A very pleasant experience to have met them. But I think I will stick to the traditional credit union movement myself.
Now when you were involved with Bardon Parish were you a Foundation Member of that?
GO’D: I am a Foundation Member of Bardon and I have been a Director all the time. I am the longest-serving Director of Bardon. Merv Callaghan ties with me as the longest-serving member of Bardon. As I say right throughout it has been a very pleasurable Committee to be on. In fact Bardon has a little first this year. the Australian Federation of Credit Union Leagues sent out a circular earlier this year, and I should have brought that along, asking for involvement of women in credit unions and it was going to be held in Singapore. Bardon sent two delegates, two ladies, the rest of Australia sent six between them. That is a statement of fact. We have always tried to pay our way and be involved. We have more-or-less continuous representation. The very first ten or twelve years of the League Merv Callaghan was at first a delegate from Police, but as soon as Bardon was started Merv became a delegate from Bardon. He became the President of the Credit Union League for quite a few years and I was Treasurer of the League in its formative years. After some disputes in the League further on, I think it was largely the Postal Tech, the Australian Post dispute when Credit Union Australia was formed. No it was when Garth Furness was appointed, though it was involved with the same business and there were some feelings there, a Special Meeting was called to sack Garth Furness and the credit union movement split. Garth was re-appointed General Manager and Merv was one of the Directors replaced. I then took his place on the Board for about a further ten years. So Bardon has had a long history of League involvement.
Now when did you first become involved with the League, with the Queensland Credit Union League?
GO’D: About 1966. I took over from Tom Dyer, one of the early Assistant Secretaries. He retired due to business pressures and whatever and I was appointed to the League Board about 1965, 1966. The same night as Harold Marsh, Harold Marsh and I were elected to the Board of the Queensland Credit Union League at the same meeting. Harold’s and my history date from that night, which I can probably get the exact date if I go back to my records a little more.
We can get that from the Annual Report. What was your first involvement with the Queensland Credit Union League?
GO’D: Just as a Director. My problem at the time I had a travelling job with the Commonwealth Bank. I was a Liaison Officer and I spent about twenty weeks of the year in the country and I had to try my level best to time my country visitation so as not to clash with the League. I managed to do that pretty well. I can remember one night I was so tired, coming back from a country bank about six o’clock, I had my tea and headed off to a Credit Union League meeting. I stopped at a stop sign and I sat there and waited for the stop sign to turn green. That was a way of life in those days. We met in all sorts of places. We have met firstly in the Police Union office at Kangaroo Point, just on the southern end of the Storey Bridge. Then the Postal Techs bought a building in 63-67 Edwards Street and the League got an office in that and we met there. The first League office was started at a place at Aurial Road, Sandgate, Albion. We met there for a year or two until they finally bought the Ringer Building next door and shifted to this building where we are having this interview in.
Now the Sandgate one, why did they move to that?
GO’D: Because it was a building of a reasonable size and there were very tight monetary restraints. The League wasn’t very big and this was the sort of building we could afford to go to. So it was money restraints more than anything. That is when the League first set up its printing service and we started a League Supply Department there.
Jack Ross’ involvement? What do you remember of that?
GO’D: Well I must have attended hundreds of meetings with Jack. Jack was an extremely dedicated man. He was aware of the possibility of the service that credit unions could render to the entire community. Jack gave credit unions his best at all times. I used to pick Jack up and deliver him back from meetings on numerous occasions. He lived at Toowong, not far from here actually. Jack was a very dedicated credit union man and I can say nothing else, other than favourably, of Jack’s service, devotion and dedication to the credit union movement.
What about Harold Marsh?
GO’D: Harold was the man that made the Teachers’ Credit Union. I think Col Dawe was the original Secretary and then Harold came in. Harold was a man without children. I think Hal had come up through the School Sporting Association. Harold became the Secretary and I was the Treasurer and we were pretty good friends. We spent a lot of time together. Harold, as Jack, under Jack’s influence I would say, had the same dedication and hope for the future of the credit union movement. It is rather a sad fact that Harold has resigned from the Teachers’ Credit Union with disappointment at the way the movement has gone and current policies. In the early days Harold Marsh, like Jack Ross and a number of others, made a major contribution to the continuing welfare and development of the credit union movement in Queensland.
Did you go to any of the early Credit Union Schools?
GO’D: Yes I went up to the Toowoomba School.
Who was it organised by?
GO’D: It was organised by the League and probably Harold and Godfrey Stephens. My problem was I had the travelling job and in addition I had a major commitment to the Army Reserve. I was the part-time Adjutant of a unit taking national servicemen. The person I took over from worked in Victoria Barracks as a civilian, and he had the phone pool, the typing pool, the printery and day-long access to everybody in the headquarters. I was a teller in a bank in a little box five foot by three foot and I couldn’t do it. I had to end up doing all my army administration part-time. I can honestly say that my wife and myself have been at army work every day except Christmas Day. I should have been at it then, but I blatantly refused. I have been at it Sunday and Good Friday. So I didn’t have the opportunities of the person I took over from, but I still had to administer national service intakes as a part-time officer. Most units have regular army staff. Our particular Colonel wanted a particular sort of unit in his command and he said we needed that unit and he would take it even it he didn’t get any staff, he would provide the staff. Well he got the unit and I provided the staff. So my early input was restricted due to the travel requirements of my job and my Army Reserve commitments.
So did you go to any of the interstate Schools at all?
GO’D: Yes. I went down to a seminar in Melbourne in the early years, one of the early AFCUL Conferences. That was my only involvement with that.
You didn’t go to any of the Newport Schools or Warburton Schools?
GO’D: No because of the restrictions of my movements, my army things, my family. I was also active in scouting and my Union Executive for Queensland. I used to go to four meetings a night. I had the first one organised for 5.30 p.m., the next one for 7.00, then 8.30 I would go to a third one and 9.30 the fourth one. I would just make sure nothing went wrong at the fourth one. I was working 220 days for the Commonwealth Bank and a lot in my spare time. I was living the rest of my life with the army, when I wasn’t going to meetings. I used to get five or six hours sleep a night. We were raising a family. I was Chairman of the Carol Lee Country Club, I was Chairman of Ashgrove Scouts. I was their delegate to Tallorane District, I was Chairman of that for about ten years. I was their delegate to Brisbane North area of Scouts. I was a Trade Union Executive. I had a major input in all those areas. I was also a Director of Bardon Parish Credit Union and a delegate to the League and Treasurer. I was doing Loan Protection Insurance for every credit union in Queensland.
When did you start the Loan Protection Insurance and how did that they start in Queensland?
GO’D: Well it was part of the credit union philosophy that credit unions would provide the free cover on their loans. In fact, I don’t think it is formally known that credit unions introduced loan protection insurance into Australia. Credit unions provided this and the banks were forced to follow suit. That is something that the credit unions can really chalk up as a winner. I worked in the Commonwealth Bank a long time after I was doing loan protection insurance for credit unions loans before the banks ever mentioned the words loan protection insurance. Our early insurance was through the State Government Insurance Office. There were a number of places that were offering similar types of insurance, but ours until CUNA and CUMIS came along was with the SGIO. When we got the CUNA and CUMIS organisation into Australia we immediately changed to them as part of the overall credit union movement.
Now when CUNA and CUMIS came in, did you have any involvement in the acceptance of them and Stan Arneil taking over as Manager for Australia and then the furore which happened when New South Wales decided that they weren’t getting what they had bargained for and removed the insurance from their League?
GO’D: We had a few problems up here and I used to push CUNA and CUMIS as a League activity. I was a League Director and I saw it as part of the credit union movement. I attended many meetings and I would speak on it at League Annual Meetings at League Charles C Compton Chapter meetings and Schools and that sort of thing. I was bitterly disappointed in them when I had an experience there in the mail one day, when I got a letter cancelling my insurance. I had been away on holidays and when I came back from holidays I went through my mail I found a letter saying my CUNA-CUMIS insurance had been cancelled because it was in arrears. When I went through the rest of the mail I got the bill for the insurance after I got the cancellation. That was because they had sent the notice out late. So I immediately dropped CUNA-CUMIS and they got no support from me, except I didn’t try to take it out of my credit union. We have been with them for some years and I just wonder if we couldn’t have done better there too.
What about CIC, were you involved at all?
GO’D: No, didn’t get involved with those at all.
So when the split came in New South Wales, it might have happened here too I suppose?
GO’D: It happened to an extent because we didn’t support it nearly as intensely as we had been up until then. Half the Board had serious doubts. Harold Marsh was the Queensland delegate for that and he was in a powerful position as Secretary of the League. He eventually became Chairman. Harold was, because of his role, a very keen CUNA Mutual-CUMIS supporter. I didn’t seek to start disputes on the League Board. While he had the power and the going it just stayed that way. It was largely Harold’s influence which kept the Queensland movement with CUNA-CUMIS.
Were you involved with Legislative Committees at all?
GO’D: I have been on every Legislative Committee we have had since 1966. Lots of hours. I attended delegations to Sir Gordon Chalk when he was Treasurer. I was on the delegation that got the Stamp Duty concessions that the credit unions got in the early days. Lots of meetings. I was on the Co-operative and Other Societies Act Advisory Committee.
Who was with you on these various committees? The Legislative Committees. Who can you remember as the leaders of those delegations?
GO’D: The delegation to Sir Gordon Chalk was Merv Callaghan, as the President of the League, Jack Ross as Vice-President, Harold Marsh and myself. There may have been Jim Green from Postal Tech, he was another Vice-President of those times. But the delegation would have been no more than five, six at the outside and it was the League Executive that went.
What were you after?
GO’D: After Stamp Duty concessions on our credit union loans. We were paying a fair bit of Stamp Duty. We didn’t think this right based on the credit union philosophy of not being quite a charitable organisation but the next best thing in our view, also because of the mutuality aspects of the tax law. We finally won that and got the concessions we were looking for.
Did you come into contact with Dermot Ryan during his endeavours to change the taxation law at the Federal level?
GO’D: Not to the extent that Merv Callaghan and the others did. Merv had a travelling job as Police Secretary and his Union. But he also had more freedom to go to interstate Police Union conferences, they have a nation-wide conference of police, and he was able to combine those interstate visits with other activities, which I didn’t have the opportunity to do. So I would certainly see Dermot when he occasionally came to Queensland, but I didn’t have near the same influence because of the role of my job.
I believe he was invited to a couple of Toowoomba Schools, did you ever hear him speak up there?
GO’D: Yes I have heard him speak.
Have you got any jokes that he told or anything like that?
GO’D: No I have got a terrible memory for jokes. I have got a brother who can reel them off all day. He got all the joke facility in our family I am afraid.
I believe he told one on John Gorton at that meeting.
GO’D: I can’t recall. Jokes are not my thing.
I have already got it anyway. I was looking through the Minutes and in actual fact it has got a report by Dermot of a meeting with John Gorton.
GO’D: One of the things I remember from the Schools I went to, the one Father Marion Ganey came to from Fiji. Both Roy Bergengren and Father Marion Ganey were the big names in the credit union movement of those days. We had the great pleasure when the Australian movement brought Father Ganey to Queensland and we put our School on to coincide with that. I had the great honour and privilege of driving him to say his mass of an afternoon at a local convent or church and having many hours with him. Bringing him home to introduce to my family. I drove him around to quite a few places. It really was an exhilarating experience.
Where was that School?
GO’D: In Toowoomba. He was there for the full time. A very simple man and a very simple philosophy, a credit union is a credit union it is not a store and it is not a travel agency. A credit union is a credit union. The Marion Ganey story is through British Honduras, Fiji and Samoa and I asked him about that. He said, “Greg, I will help them to help themselves.” He used to convene a meeting and sit them all down and put a bit of paper and a pencil or a pen in the middle of the ring. If a sudden wind blew the bit of paper away he wouldn’t get up and get it, but one of the natives would, and he was the man he wanted. Someone who had enough nous to see that something had to be done. It would be something like that which would help him to pick the bloke he wanted to be the local representative to get it started. He had great results everywhere he went. A very simple man with a very simple outlook and great results.
Did you ever visit him in Fiji?
GO’D: No I haven’t unfortunately. With my army and work commitments I haven’t been a world traveller. I have only been overseas twice. I went with two of my sons to Noumea on a school French visit. I had had a road accident not long before, in fact it must have been the time that Bardon Credit Union started, the year after. When Bardon Credit Union started I had just had a head-on collision with a truck and I wasn’t going to go to the original meeting. I said to Father Lyons, “Well Father, you have got that much expertise there that I don’t think you need me.” He said, “Greg I still want you to look at the Constitution before the meeting.” So he delivered me a copy of the Constitution and I would have to say I was rather amazed that I would have so many objections. I had to get out of my bed with a fractured hip and get up on crutches to a meeting. I got a motion through that the Committee should be empowered to adopt such amendments as were not dealt with that evening and they were not to be contrary to any motions passed at that meeting. I got about thirty amendments through for that. That bit of paper is still pinned to the original Minutes of Meeting of Bardon Parish Credit Union. I looked at it about a year ago. So I have always been in interested in constitutions and legislation because that is the framework under which we live. I seem to get involved at most League meetings if somebody wants to start changing that Constitution, voting rights, or affiliation fees. They are up again this year and I have to take a very intense look at the thing. I do take an interest in legislation and constitutions and things like that.
What about the Chapters? Were you in on the formation of the Chapters in the first instance?
GO’D: Charles C Compton Chapter, the Brisbane Chapter. Once again I couldn’t get too involved because of the other commitments I had. I used to go usually to see that nothing was going wrong that shouldn’t be going. I don’t buy in unless I have to, but I am always there to make sure that things were going along at a reasonable pace. I adopted that policy in the army and I got to be known for that. I have had people say to me, “See you had a very quiet camp.” I would say, ‘Well RSM I came and looked at what you were doing and I thought it was good and I didn’t see I had any right to interfere, but I made sure you stuck to it.” That is the way I approached it. If it was going good, why should I interfere.
Who was operating it, who was Secretary, who was President of the Charles C Compton Chapter?
GO’D: Well I haven’t got it in writing but I will be very surprised if Jack Ross wasn’t the original President.
He is the original President.
GO’D: That was Jack’s line. If there was something to do with the welfare of the movement and proliferating it, Jack would have been there. We would have given him that courtesy. No-one ever sought to interfere. We would see that as Jack’s line and we would nominate him and he would accept, he was that sort of man. We had the vision, we knew what we wanted to do and we knew we had the people to do it. I was the figures man. I had to take a back row, but I did lots of figures and I did lots of meetings and I just made sure everything was there and that there was nothing to object to.
What about the other Chapters, were you involved in them at all?
GO’D: No I wasn’t. I couldn’t help with those unfortunately. I know there was one on the Darling Downs, but I didn’t get too involved.
The Savings Protection Fund, was you involved in that?
GO’D: Yes I was right in the Savings Protection Fund. In fact I have bought an article along today on the starting of the Central. What we were looking for in Central. That is quite an interesting paper.
Now was the Savings Protection Fund before, during or after Central?
GO’D: I couldn’t say for certain. I would have to look at more papers. They were both things we knew we had to get up. We put a lot of time into them. The Savings Protection Fund was absolutely essential. In fact it saved the movement in Queensland. You must have heard that story of the last couple of years of the Coastal Credit Union. Our movement paid out $5 million approximately and not a page got in any newspaper. The Queensland credit union movement has never had a problem with liquidity or bad, adverse publicity.
Why were there two Savings Protection Funds?
GO’D: Because the drain on the first one was becoming embarrassing. So we found it an appropriate thing to wind up the first Fund and transfer the service to the second Fund and try again. But it was because of calls on the Fund. I would like to get all the figures together and run through it. It was as a result of calls on the Fund and we just saw it as a better management thing to say we would cut this at this stage and start a new Fund. That is precisely what happened when the Australian Government brought in one of the Credit Societies Act, because they didn’t have enough money in the funds. The fact that we had decided to keep our Fund going until the Government one was viable was what saved the credit union movement in Queensland. The Government said we can’t help so we said we would look after it ourselves thank you, and we did.
Did you save any non-affiliated credit unions?
End Tape 1A: 5293 Words: 1 hour 50 minutes
25 SEPTEMBER 1991: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO GREG O’DOWD
We were still on Savings Protection Fund to some extent, but there was one thing I was going to ask you, that was re legislation towards a Reserve Fund with compulsory contributions. Did you ever espouse that in the Legislative Committee?
GO’D: Well there has to be a Reserve Fund or a Savings Protection Fund, that has been a clear objective and policy ever since we started.
Compulsory?
GO’D: Well where every one participates otherwise you get the people who are not part of the movement. Yes compulsory I would agree is absolutely essential. That has been our policy all along. Otherwise you get these people who think they are more important, they are more clever, they know more than anybody else then they make a mess of it and someone has to bail them out, which has happened many times in the past. It is a continuing fact of life. One of my things, I had a liaison job for the Commonwealth Bank and I used to visit credit unions in the country. I used to visit all the Army Units too, I was doing several jobs of liaison (a) for the bank, (b) for the credit union movement and (c) for the army. So every where I went I had a number of calls to make. I actually took the official credit union movement into Rockhampton. I had lunch at the Archbishops House. There was a Father Laye, on the northern side of the river and he had a credit union there under the Antigonish concept. On Sunday night they would have a meeting, Monday night they would do the books, Tuesday night they would do the arrears, Wednesday night they would have a cottage meeting and go round. They were doing credit unions five and seven nights a week, which from a family man point of view is completely appalling. I can’t understand how a Catholic priest would have got them involved to that extent. But they were physically having credit union meetings of one sort or another five to seven nights a week. I thought that was crazy. With the official movement you set your Secretary up and they were at the stage where they should have had an office and part-time staff and they were sending these volunteers running around doing everything. So I arranged to meet a couple of the priests, in fact I had dinner at the Bishop’s residence with the Bishop and a couple of the priests and told them there were other ways of doing this, they shouldn’t be tying all their families up. There are other ways of having credit unions. I then rang the League and said, “Look, we need to get Godfrey Stephens,” who was then our Field Officer, “up here. I have given the priests a bit of a chat.” In fact we had several meetings during my continued stay in Rockhampton over the next week or two. I gave them the way we did it and the way to run things. Godfrey came up and continued and then the Rockhampton credit unions started to develop. They had three or four different credit unions before they started amalgamating and getting themselves into problems by appointing a car salesman as a credit union Manager. The rest was history. We had to bail them out for $1.5 million. This happened at the same time as the Queensland Coastal Credit Union which went for $3.3 million. It just shows you how stupid judges and prosecutors and the legal system is when the man who knocked off $3.3 million got three years with a minimum of three months because the prosecutor told the judge the money had been repaid. The judge didn’t ask whether he paid it out of his money or did the movement put in $3.3 million to save embarrassment all around. Because the statement was made in the court that money had been repaid the man got a minimum of three months for $3.3 million. Unbelievable. So that is what our Savings Protection Funds did. The State Government’s statutory fund, Reserve Fund, had only just started. They only had $200,000 in it and the Government said they couldn’t help, they were not going to blow their fund apart. We had the foresight and the intelligence not to wind our Fund up when the Government’s started. We said we would keep our own Fund there until the Government Fund was big enough.
What year did the Government Fund start?
GO’D: 1986 I think was the Credit Societies Act.
I thought the Rockhampton one was ten years before that problem?
GO’D: They came again. About a year apart. In a period of a couple of years we funded about $4.9 million.
I was looking in the books over in the archives there and they mention the various credit unions, Rockhampton credit unions. There was one struck off, another one amalgamated and then they came back under the original name again, Capricornia.
GO’D: Yes. But there were a series of problems. There were several dips made. In fact I would have to say I am quite angry with what happened there. We had paid into CUNA and CUMIS for years and we were told that Directors would be prosecuted and all this sort of thing. When it came down, they didn’t do very much that seemed to me to be effective, it may all be legal in terms of their fine print of their contracts, but that cost the Queensland movement $4.9 million of our own money, $3.3 million at Queensland Coastal and $1.5 million in Rockhampton. We got very little settlement. We got back about 60 per cent. When we finally wound up the Savings Protection Fund Number 2, we got something like 55 per cent or 60 per cent of our money back and the other 40 per cent went to pay off those two major debts. That was so much for CUMIS protection as far as I was concerned.
Well I can see why you might be less than enamoured of the company from then on. AFCUL, were you a delegate at any time?
GO’D: Delegate once in Melbourne. I was also in the early days on AFCUL Publications Committee. I did a few little jobs for them. But in view of my other work commitments and the fact that most of it was happening down south and they didn’t seem to contact me very much, I just dropped off that Committee.
What about the people who were on it, people like Cliff Jury who was once President.
GO’D: Well Cliff was President of the Queensland League certainly. He was quite a few years after I started.
In 1974 he was President of AFCUL.
GO’D: That is right. But we had been going since 1965, 1966, in a big way in Queensland. I am not quite sure what year Cliff became League President here, about 1970, 1971, 1972. Used to come a long way down from Mount Isa. In the way things developed in Queensland you sort of had friends on the Board and Cliff was one of the people who was replaced with Merv Callaghan in the Postal Techs split. At that particular time Cliff may have been the Vice-Chairman of the League. Len Hedger was Chairman of the League at the time of the split. That particular group at the meeting at the Toowong Soccer Club, Len Hedger, Jim Green, Cliff Jury, Merv Callaghan and a couple of others were elected off the Board over that particular split.
What was that split over? What was the issue?
GO’D: Well what happened was that Godfrey Stephens had been replaced as the League Manager and we appointed an Accountant, Garth Furness, as the League General Manager. Now it gets back to internal politics in the Post Office. Have you heard this story.
No I haven’t, from anybody.
GO’D: Well what happened was there was the Postal Techs Credit Union, this is my version, the way I have always understood the story, and there was the Australian Postal Credit Union. This was when there was a PMG Department which combined both the Post Office and Postal Techs and it was proposed to split them into Telecom and Australia post. Somebody at the Australian Post Credit Union, possibly Jack Harvey who was their Manager, had the foresight to register the name of Australian Post and Telecom Credit Union, which took the mat out from under the Postal Techs. It caused a great deal of ill-feeling of major amounts. There were no holds barred in the hate and dissension that caused. The Postal Techs Credit Union changed their name, but kept the initials to Professional and Technical Credit Union (PTCU). Somebody was stirring the possum a little bit and got the last Annual Report of the PTCU and asked a certain Executive of the Queensland League out to lunch and asked some leading questions which I am sure took the man by surprise or he was not aware of any malicious intent, which may or may not have been there but probably was very much. He answered some questions in a certain way that perhaps the Report could have been better. Those Reports were published apparently in some article in some Post Office magazine or elsewhere, and that caused the split. As the Postal Tech’s Len Hedger and Jim Green and supporters were on the League Board they sacked the League Manager, Garth Furness. Harold Marsh, who had been instrumental in selecting Garth, or in those procedures, rallied behind Garth. Of course there was a very bitter meeting held at the either Toowong or Indooroopilly Soccer Club, not far from Indooroopilly Station, I can’t quite remember which.
It is not the Brother’s one is it?
GO’D: No it is a soccer club. A very bitter meeting was held and the League Board lost a vote of confidence and was sacked. Those particular people, Cliff Jury, Len Hedger as the Chairman, Jim Green, Merv Callaghan from my own credit union, they were dismissed from the Board. I didn’t stand on that particular ticket. I have always treasured my independence and I have refused to get associated with cliques. So I was one of the people re-elected and Bardon had continuing representation, which some degree had been forecast by our Chairman, Tom Furtell, at our previous meeting where something was said and Tom Furtell just made the quiet observation, “Well Merv it may not be you that is there after the meeting but we may have another representative,” which turned out to be what happened. Merv and I were never opposed. As a matter of fact we have been good friends, it is just that Merv had a different association and relationship with those other people. I would have to say that I wasn’t in that particular group. I have had no trouble talking to Merv, I visit him in his home, and he and I have a good relationship, but he had different loyalties and priorities on his relationships than I had. I am aware the Australian Society of Accountancy has the motto, “Independence and integrity”. I am not a member of that Society, but I have been in that field in the Commonwealth Bank and as an auditor if you don’t treasure your independence and integrity you get sucked into a clique. I am opposed to cliques. It happened in the Police Force, the Fitzgerald Inquiry, you get the little group of people watching after one another’s backs and they get away with murder. That is not an understatement. So I have continually refused to be involved in cliques, I believe I am my own man, I have tried to be as independent as possible and just walk straight down the middle.
Tell me that wasn’t the one where the Federation was set up, was it?
GO’D: Yes. That is how the Federation got set up. Having lost control of the League Board the people from the Postal Techs and their supporters then formed the Federation.
But where does Neil McCrystal come into this?
GO’D: Neil McCrystal was on the Board of Australia Post with Jack Harvey. In fact I was starting to have problems with the League Supply Department, I was becoming unpopular all around. I was getting to be known as a stirrer. I have got that reputation everywhere I have been because I don’t get into cliques and if you are not on their side they think you are a stirrer if you have some other point of view. I have walked into League meetings and both Jack Harvey and Neil McCrystal would say, “Are you going to stir on Supply Department today?” I would say, “Of course, I have got no other choice have I? I either believe what I am saying or I am a hypocrite and I will shut up. I believe what I am saying so I will get up and say it.” I have had that reputation and they used to wait for me just to bait me a little bit. That is the way it has been.
Let me be clear. Neil McCrystal’s credit union, was he opposed by Len Hedger or where they both on the same side?
GO’D: Different sides entirely. Neil McCrystal I associate with Jack Harvey, which later became Credit Union Australia, Australia Post and Telecom. Looking for a bigger bond and size it became Credit Union Australia, which it is pretty much impossible to have a bigger bond than Australia.
Well they are the largest membership. Not the largest financially.
GO’D: But with a name like that you can’t go on if you haven’t got a bond in Australia. That has been the problem in the credit union movement that every time somebody wanted to get bigger they lent more money with less care and attention, less security and less appropriate lending policies and they ended up in trouble. We have taken over about twenty credit unions and amalgamated them as they have failed throughout the history of credit unions in Queensland. It would have been two or three a year in some cases. The bigger ones usually sought that. They took over a going concern and the Savings Protection Fund put in the net loss so that the bigger credit unions gradually got five hundred members from this, or three hundred members from there, plus the up-to-date balance sheet, which was square. So they were absorbed in the bigger credit unions. Some of the bigger credit unions sought to grow in that fashion and that was how they kept looking for growth. They would take over another one and get the difference from the Savings Protection Fund so that we didn’t have any adverse publicity of a credit union going into bankruptcy or members having their funds tied up, we were able to manage the Savings Protection Fund by making good the loss situation and transferring a viable credit union to one of the bigger ones.
Len Hedger’s credit union is now Sunstate isn’t it? Not Credit Union of Australia?
GO’D: Len Hedger was never Credit Union of Australia. He was in a different camp. Jack Harvey was the Manager of the Australian Post and he became Manager of Australia Post and Telecom. Then Credit Union Australia. Len Hedger was at Postal Tech and his supporters were Jim Green and one of the early League Vice-President’s was Jack Preston. I had great relationships with those fellows, but as the years went by I didn’t actually subscribe to all their policies. It didn’t matter to me and I wasn’t a close confidant so our relationships gradually went in various directions. It didn’t upset me, I wasn’t being unfriendly to them, I just wanted to remain independent and that was the way it was.
What about the upheaval that happened over the Teachers’ Credit Union? Did you have any view of that you could report?
GO’D: I believe you have the fact that they had a Teachers’ Credit Union meeting, a motion of confidence was passed on the Board at about 11 o’clock and people who went into any sort of scheme naturally thought it was time to go home at that time. They had family responsibilities, they didn’t want burglars in the house, or break and enters. They were concerned for their family’s welfare, their children. They let the baby-sitters go and they went home. I have never seen the Minutes of that meeting, so I can’t speak authoritatively, but I do believe in the wee hours of the morning, an hour or two later, a motion was passed that ended up with the Board being sacked. I don’t believe that is a very appropriate way to run meetings and I believe that the Act should be altered and the Constitutions made so that sort of thing could never happen again.
That is one view. I have letters which give another view. I will hear Lloyd Hawkins’ view tomorrow. I have already heard Harold Marsh’s view today.
GO’D: I wasn’t a member of that credit union so I can’t speak with any authority, but I have heard a lot of comment about it over the years and it has been a most painful experience for those involved. A lot of well-experienced credit union Directors careers came to a halt in the wee hours of the morning. A lot of people doubt whether that was an appropriate way to go, or for what did to happen.
It also spilled over into the League didn’t it?
GO’D: I guess they got a different representative on the League Board and different General Managers and things like that.
Not long after that Lloyd Hawkins became President of the League didn’t he?
GO’D: Well he was then the delegate as General Manager. He had been General Manager before that happened. I just got the story. What I heard is not authoritative it is just a rumour I heard and I will pass it on so you may be able to confirm through your various questions. I believe that in that credit union Harold came from the sporting body and also Lloyd Hawkins was Harold’s Deputy or close association in the teachers’ sports body. I believe that is largely the group and the staff of the Teachers’ Credit Union which remained after a subsequent vote. I can’t say that it was arranged, I have no evidence for that, but it would be surprising if it were not.
Now what area haven’t we covered so far? We have covered the Savings Protection Fund, Legislative Committees, Chapters, Schools.
GO’D: I would have to say like most people, I am appalled at the interest rates that are being charged by credit unions. Most credit unions are nothing but finance companies under a different name. I used to go round, as I said, with the army and the bank and I would visit an army depot and I would say to an army warrant officer, “Are you a member of the Army Credit Union?” He would say, “Sir you ought to know better than that, I can get cheaper money at your bank.” That has been a fact of life. I am appalled at the interest rates being charged by credit unions throughout Australia. I don’t believe that they are justifiable in any way, shape or form. One of the costs of course is the huge salaries being paid. I don’t believe that is appropriate to the movement either. What happened throughout the States is that the various credit union Managers got appointed to the League Board, and these were the people that were then adjudicating what were appropriate salary levels. I believe that the members throughout Australia are paying much higher interest rates because of policies such as that.
Well the argument is from the Managers and from Board members as well is that they have to compete for the money that is out there.
GO’D: Well you know the banks seem to be able to compete by charging lower interest rates on loans. I don’t believe that is a factor. If they were a little bit less interested in higher salary structures, I am sure your credit union Manager gets a higher salary than a bank Manager does. A bank Manager is a very lowly paid individual, that is how they show their profits. That doesn’t happen in credit unions. I am not aware of any credit union Manager who is not on a salary higher than a bank of an equivalent size, I would be very surprised if I found one.
I know Queensland hasn’t gone into this Project Renewal and is at present not seeking to abolish the Queensland League, although I believe there is quite a number of people who want that. Is there also legislation to stop them abolishing the League and going across borders into AFCUL?
GO’D: Well I have worked on a paper, which I will be distributing this weekend, about ten or twelve foolscap pages. There couldn’t be a more definite opponent of Project Renewal than I am. They came up here and there was a lot of cliques. In fact I am the person who alerted the credit union movement in Queensland.
They came up here? Who is they?
GO’D: The delegates, Reg Elliott and senior people from New South Wales came up here in 1989.
Bill Howe?
GO’D: He was one of them. I was sitting in the office of Bardon Parish Credit Union just relieving the part-time employee we had there. I opened the mail and there was this circular about the Singapore Conference. On about page four or five is a series of little dots and it said a national mandate by March of next year. This was in December and all of a sudden I am reading a little paragraph on about page four which on the face of it would have nothing of significance and I find they want a national mandate by March the following year. I rang up David Perry and I asked if he had read it. He said, “No, I haven’t got that.” I said, “Well I am telling you now is the time to start organising Queensland meetings, because they are not informed. They have said that the following things happened at Singapore and the following resolutions were passed.” David said, “Well I was there and I deny that those motions were passed.” I said, “Well you had better get this. I will come over and see you.” I brought certain papers over and he said, “This is a surprise to me, I haven’t got a copy of that.” I said, “Well it came in the mail at my credit union. I will go back and fax you some more stuff.” I went back and I had to go to Ashgrove Post Office, because a little parish credit union doesn’t run to faxes. I went to Ashgrove Post Office and faxed David information. We had a series of meetings. I don’t know if you have spoken to Len Talty of the Commonwealth Public Service, did he give you any of his letters that he sent down to them?
No, but he told me what his views were.
GO’D: Well we wrote, and lots of credit unions wrote, and the answers were absolutely contemptuous and condescending of credit unions in Queensland. We got answers like, “See previous correspondence,” and that was repeated six and eight and ten times to a series of questions. Now if they were really fair dinkum about communicating and co-ordinating Project Renewal they should have had the answers ready. As late as April this year Teachers’ Credit Union managed a meeting and I am a prolific note-taker after years of administration in the army and in credit unions and I get a very accurate gist of what goes on. I took prolific notes that night. Once again, Project Renewal’s supporters came up with anything but facts. Cliches, theories and they didn’t give the credit unions once again any effective communication. In fact the programme, the first four items, one was the opening by the Chairman, number two was varying of agenda, number three was input or items from credit unions and number four was on the Project Renewal. The Chairman, who was Ron Dickson who was at the Teachers’ Credit Union, got up and said, “We are going to vary the agenda, as on the agenda paper.” Credit unions got up, especially Brisbane City Council Employees’ Credit Union and Brisbane Independent Credit Union, and said, “No, we want the agenda to go. We want the credit union input because we haven’t got questions from the previous series of meetings.” The Teachers’, on behalf of Project Renewal, had sent out a letter saying, “We now have eight credit unions which are fully supportive.” I said, “That’s very strange, because I know two of those names on that list and I would be surprised if they are fully supportive.” Knowing what had been going on and the discussions at various meetings and seminars and whatever, I rang Brisbane City Council Employees’ Credit Union and said in my letter, “What about it?” I couldn’t contact them on the Friday, but they rang me back on the Monday and they said they were livid, they were not fully supportive. I said, “That is what I thought.” So they held a Special Meeting the next day for the meeting on the Wednesday night, or whatever, and their Board passed another motion saying they weren’t fully supportive. But they were on the list, misleading people by saying they were fully supportive. At the meeting that night I went and saw Len Talty from CPS Credit Union and said, “I see you name is on the list as being fully supportive.” He said, “That’s not right either. We support them up to the extent of the recommendations of the Ernst and Minn Inquiry we made.” I said, “But they are telling credit unions all around Queensland that huge credit unions like you are fully supportive.” This has been my experience with Project Renewal. I haven’t seen a statement of fact. I have seen lots of allegations and suggestions that they are going to do this and they are going to be very successful. The fact is several years after they started this project they still haven’t got national unity. Now I would start to think that is a matter of serious concern. They should be looking at the Executives, whether they have achieved what they promised or they have failed. I think it is a failure. They have condescended, as I have said, they are condescending to Queensland. Their previous correspondence is actually contemptuous, saying we ought to know better, or we hadn’t read our mail. People were seeking clarifications of some pretty wide-ranging words you could have taken in several different ways. They wanted specific answers to specific questions and didn’t get them. I will be fighting Project Renewal until the day I die. If they want to treat us like that, they can go and take a running jump in the lake. I am putting out a written six or eight page circular this week.
I also understood it was against Queensland legislation.
GO’D: It was. In fact I would have to say I am amazed that some of those people didn’t get prosecuted. They were saying they would take over the League, put some of those people across the border, give them a Queensland address and run the League for us. Now that was hardly any way to get Queensland credit unions on-side. They made comments like that. It was almost like, “You are a bunch of fools. You don’t know how to run the movement. We will put a few fellows across the border and we will run your show for you.” That went over like a lead balloon. Queensland hasn’t been given a single effective reason for us to join Project Renewal. It was badly presented at all stages, there has been no clear communication, no clear answers to questions and why the hell should we join an organisation like that. The salaries are another problem. A figure of $350,000 was quoted for at least one individual, have you heard that? That then sets a high salary range, all the supporters come up. CPS queried that in great detail two years ago, paragraph after paragraph, giving an illustration of their costs, of League costs, and how come these figures were quoted for them. This would mean that affiliation fees have to rise and so it goes on. At the Teachers’ meeting all sorts of things were put up, but the average credit union Executive doesn’t get to hear it. They go home after a meeting and you don’t get the follow-up, and if you do get follow-up it is open to more questions. I still haven’t seen any possible reason for the Queensland credit union Directors to make a decision to join Project Renewal. There was a provision in our Act that you couldn’t do that sort of thing. So to say that they would put people across the border to run the show, give them a Queensland address, was in fact I believe in breach of the Act. It may not be, they got away with that, but there was a provision we couldn’t do it. I don’t believe that should be changed until they get an effective communication system and other systems set up. What they have offered is far from appropriate and I certainly won’t be a part of it and I will be very vocal against it until they get it right.
Now we are coming to the end of this tape, is there anything that I should have asked you that I haven’t?
GO’D: I don’t think so.
Were you involved in computerisation or the ATM network?
GO’D: Not really, that was largely the Queensland Teachers’ Credit Union, the were the forerunners in that. They set up Redicard. Harold Marsh.
Not Redicard, that was New South Wales/AFCUL. It was the other card that they set up.
GO’D: They were the first ATM in Australia. That was after I had less input into the League affairs. I was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that was my major input. I have sort of just been keeping my eye on policy matters ever since, so I can represent my credit union and those smaller credit unions.
End Tape 1B: 5118 Words: 1 hour 30 minutes