24 JULY 1990: ANSWCU66: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO LES ROBINSON
I will ask you Mr Robinson, where were you born and when?
LR: In Sydney on 17 October 1925.
What part of Sydney?
LR: I am not sure to tell you the truth. I lived all of my early life in Leichhardt, but were I was actually born I don’t know.
It is not important, but you grew up in Leichhardt?
LR: That’s right.
What sort of influence did you get from your parents?
LR: They were a practising Catholic family. There were four children, well five altogether the second child died about age six months. It was only in much later years when my wife and I lost our eldest child of cancer that I realised what influence that must have had on their lives. They were a working class family. My father worked on the trams during the Depression. Fortunately he did have a job through most of the Depression, unlike a lot of people. But still you didn’t manage that well and that influence of being born in the Depression years has lasted with me for a great many years, is still with me as a matter of fact.
What about your mother, what influence did she have on you do you think?
LR Well probably most of all, as mothers tend to. She was a good home body, a good family provider, sacrificed the usual things for the family. I was the youngest and the other children still say I was the spoilt one of the family. That is pretty normal but I grew up OK.
Where did you go to school?
LR: At Christian Brothers, Lewisham, which is just across from Leichhardt. In the second year of high school, I think, I switched to Christian Brothers, Rozelle and then did the Intermediate. I left after the Intermediate. There wasn’t a possibility, the family finances weren’t good enough, to go on. I got a job at just before age fifteen, I think it was.
What did you like or dislike about school? What subjects were you good at?
LR: I disliked school a lot. I enjoyed the time out of school. But I was good at maths and English and that stood by ever since, I seemed to have just a natural ability there. But for other reasons I can’t put my finger on probably I wasn’t keen on school.
Sport, were you interested in that at all?
LR: No. This is possibly one of the reasons. As you can see, I am fairly tall and always was. I was always the biggest in the class and always had to play football, there was no question but I wasn’t a competitive type. I think that probably had a bearing because I was not only always selected but I was always in the front row.
I was in the same boat as you I think. I was always matched against the school heavy weight and I was a lot younger. Well when left school, how did you like your first job?
LR: I was working as a clerk in a place called Prescotts, a small-goods firm in Sussex Street. It lasted only six months and then I got a call up for the State Public Service. I went there in the Clerical Administrative Division and remained there for twenty-five years of my life. I had a great deal of experience. Public Works was a very varied department in that they had sewerage construction jobs out in the country areas, they were running tile works and brick works, all sorts of public buildings. So you could move round from section to section and get a great variety of experience, which I did, and that stood me well in my later years.
Who was the Secretary then?
LR: ?????? Johnson was the Under-Secretary as they called them in those days and then he became Director, they just changed the title. The final Director was Graham Humphreys, who played a big part in the State Government Employees’ Credit Union that I and he helped form.
How did that happen?
LR: One of our fellow workers named Terry Gallagher came to me and a few others and said, ‘I’ve got on to a bit of information about these credit unions. They seem to be a good idea, can we talk about it, talk about getting one started?’ I was very keen because I had been married at that stage, this was the late 1958 probably. I had been married four years and already had three children. That was a struggle. We were paying then on hire purchase twenty-odd per cent when the average interest rate was bank rate, savings account rate was two per cent sort of thing, so there was a big difference. Then to be told we could do our own thing and not be charged more than one per cent a month, or twelve per cent a year, it was half the cost of the hire purchase, less than half the cost. So I was very keen for selfish reasons but also I could see it would do a lot of good for my fellow workers. I was always involved in that. I was in the union, Public Service Association representative for a great many years and on their Divisional Council for the ??????? Division for many years. I was Vice-Chairman at one stage. So I did have an inclination to get involved in people’s business.
Did you meet Leo Davis in those days?
LR: Yes. Leo, I think, was also one of our Foundation Directors and a very good worker for the credit union and still comes along to the General Meetings. I have dropped out now of those General Meetings. But Terry Gallagher was the main force in it all. He kept us going.
Can you remember your inaugural meeting from that credit union? Where was it held and when? What time of day?
LR: I can’t remember. It was in one of the small meeting rooms in the department.
Lunch hour maybe, or just after work?
LR: I think lunch hour. It certainly wasn’t during working hours. We were very determined not to take up departmental time.
I think Leo has written it up anyway. I haven’t actually seen it yet, although he told me he wrote it. Helen McIntyre told me that there was such a small history around.
LR: Good. I am disappointed I wasn’t consulted.
I think Leo, because he is retired, because I know him because I was involved with that book on the Public Works and he was in support, so to speak, right the way through the rewriting of it for the Public Works. I recently wrote it from outside and then of course it became obvious that they wanted it within their organisation so I came across him at that time. He told me then and when I interviewed Helen McIntyre she told me there was some such thing around.
LR: As I said I was in the State Public Service for twenty-five years, in Public Works particularly. That was until 1967 when I went to the Credit Union League. I was Chairman of the Board at the time Helen McIntyre was selected to be the first Secretary. She has done an outstanding job of course and I recently went to a get-together for her twenty-fifth anniversary of service with the credit union.
During your time at the Public Works can you think of some of the places you worked, actually, and some of the jobs that you did?
LR: I was in the Accounts Section for quite some time. I spent about a two year period in the airforce during the early service.
Where did you go in the airforce?
LR: Well I was initially in air crew but because of my height and eyesight I was designated pilot only and therefore the envy of most of the other people in the group, because they all wanted to be pilots but they had to take what they were given. But I could only be a pilot. This eventually turned out to be a disadvantage. I first of all did three months initial training in Bradfield Park, Sydney and then I was sent down to the initial training flying school down at Narrandera. At that stage the War was coming to a close, particularly in Europe. The demand for air crew was lessening substantially and they held our flight up and joined two together. Then when we did our ten hour test, which is the first test where they usually scrubbed about twenty per cent they scrubbed about eighty per cent of the combined group because they just didn’t want them. Eventually I found when I went back to Ultimo, they had a technical section there, and switched to wireless mechanic, radio mechanic I suppose more correctly but in those days they used to call us wireless mechanics, I met two of my fellow air crew trainees and they were the only two that finished up getting through as pilots. They were then working at Ultimo on clerical work. So it was a bit late for me.
So where after the War did you go in the Public Works then?
LR: Went back to the Accounts Section which was extremely disappointing because they got me demobilised quickly because the public service said they needed experienced people. Then they put me into a very mundane position in the Accounts Section, which made be very cranky. Otherwise I may have had an opportunity to get to the Japanese Occupation Force and I would have enjoyed getting away and seeing something. In the almost two years that I was in the airforce I didn’t get out of Australia. I fought the battle of Melbourne and that is about it.
So where did you go after the Accounts?
LR: Bit hard to remember this detail, it is such a long time ago now.
North or south?
LR: Well I spent one period, a quite enjoyable eighteen months, up at Murwillumbah when they installed the sewerage system. I was the Chief Clerk. I was the only clerk but they called them Chief Clerk because they had some authority in certain areas. The Engineer of course was in charge. It was most interesting and excellent training because you did the lot, you did everything. Accounting and pay-roll, bookkeeping, employing some staff and organising staff, that sort of thing.
Were you still in the credit union?
LR: No, the credit union came much later than that. That was before I was married, in 1954. The credit union didn’t come until 1959. Then I was down at Port Kembla for a couple of years. They had what they called a district office down there and there was also, in those days, Public Works operated what they called the Southern Electricity Supply, which is now part of the Electricity Commission. So we had a power station distribution centre down there. That again was a good and varied experience. I then came back to Sydney. My mind is a bit of a blank then for a few years. The last ten or twelve years for a large part of that I was in the Account Section as the Contracts Clerk for all the building and engineering contracts. I did the final accounting check of all the payments going out and the variations. Evolving from that I was appointed to a Committee to help re-organise the whole thing because it was clear too many things weren’t done properly at the initial stages. Therefore, at my stage, at the accounting final stage, it was just chaos. So this Committee was called together and as a result we completely re-organised and I was on an on-going Committee to re-organise the Engineering and Architectural Sections by putting clerical and accounting staff in with the architects and engineers and doing the things properly right from the start, sort of thing. It took some convincing to convince architects and engineers, etc., that this was for their benefit so they could concentrate on the things they were trained for and leave the mundane things to the clerical staff to do it. Didn’t emphasise of course that it would then be done properly. They logically weren’t interested in doing these things. That worked very successfully and I remained in the Architects Branch for the next ten years, I think, until I left. No, I didn’t leave from there. I was then transferred down to what they call the Secretariat and I spent a couple of years writing a Contracts Manual, the first manual they had there, as to how contracts would be administered and that sort of thing. I understand this has since been used as a basis by a large number of the construction authorities elsewhere in Australia.
In Sydney did you work in the old Public Works building before it moved to the Black Stump?
LR: Yes I worked there all the time, except when I was in the country.
How about the tin shed over the road?
LR: Never worked in the tin shed. I knew it very well of course. The old temporary building as they called it.
For nearly a hundred years.
LR: Yes. Same as the temporary public servant, there is nothing more permanent than a temporary public servant as the old saying went. But I did get into the new Black Stump for six months before I decided to leave.
I am afraid I am going to have to ask you one question which isn’t directly pertinent to this. Do you remember the removal of the records and the culling of the records in the move and who did it?
LR: The credit union records?
No the Public Works records. They were culled and a lot of them went missing at that period.
LR: No. I have no recollection of that at all so I apparently had no responsibility there.
The story is that two retired gentlemen were brought back to cull them and they just got swamped. So they ended up chucking it into a steel-sided truck which dumped it at Sheas Creek apparently where it either got flooded or burnt, I am not sure which.
LR: I wasn’t aware of that. I must have been up in the clouds at that stage.
You were getting married?
LR: No. I was married by that stage. That would have been 1967. Well and truly married because we were married in 1954 and that would have been 1967, or late 1966, when we moved to the Black Stump.
Now as far as the credit union is concerned, how did you come to be Chairman?
LR: I think after about two years we were tending to rotate positions. We seemed to agree as a Board that it was not wise for one person to be in one position for too long. I guess at one meeting a couple of years after the thing started I think the then Chairman was Bill Frost and he sort of said, ‘I’m dropping down, I nominate Les Robinson.’ Somehow I was it but I was quite happy. Again it was a good experience. By that stage I had taken one of the leadership roles in the credit union. When I got interested in it, I really got interested in it. For example very early in the piece, there was a proposal right at the start that we charge a flat rate of interest. I knew enough about dealing with hire purchase and that sort of thing that that wasn’t the thing to do. So I started to look into it and I presented to the next Board meeting a paper recommending that we don’t do that, we stick to the reducible rates of interest and the reasons why. They agreed to that unanimously and luckily because we would have had to retrace our steps later if we hadn’t. This is a corner stone of credit unions, that you charge reducible interest, and it would have been bad, which I didn’t quite realise at that stage. I just knew from my own experience that a flat interest rate was not the way to go.
Now Bob Monaghan had a lot of problems in his credit union trying to explain to them exactly how they should go. George Prescott as well.
LR: Prescott at Waterside? Monaghan where was he?
Burwood.
LR: Burwood that’s right. Well this was common. We were all finding our way at this stage. George Prescott, just getting on to another credit union, he had a problem because his Chairman was also the top man at the Waterside Workers, Charlie Fitzgibbons, and he was a very strong character.
He’s a Governor of the Reserve Bank at the present.
LR: He is a very strong character.
I interviewed him and I know what you mean. When did you get that much interested in credit unions that you thought you might get a job in it? Did you apply for the Managership when Clarrie Murphy first got it?
LR: Oh no. I wasn’t that much involved in the central organisation at that stage. I had a very heavy involvement at work and then the credit union on top of it and then a young family on top of that. I didn’t get involved in the League. I attended a couple of meetings representing the credit union.
Did you go to any Schools?
LR: I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything particular.
Not until the Newport period?
LR: Certainly I was at Newport after I became General Manager of the League. I just haven’t any particular memory of them.
What about the Chapter, were you involved in that at all? The City of Sydney Chapter?
LR: Later again after I was General Manager. I can’t remember when the City of Sydney Chapter started. I almost certainly attended with the credit union again, but I have no particular recollection. This is prior to becoming General Manager of the League. Everyone knows of course the Association today was the League in those days.
Yes, it has changed its name three times, four times. Can you remember exactly how you came to apply for the job of General Manager of the League when you did?
LR: It interested me. It is something that I loved, the credit union work. I love the idea of it and the tremendous potential it had to help people at that stage because they were still paying high interest rates the great majority of people. I was also a probably a little bit disillusioned with Public Works after twenty-five years because of the strict seniority system. Although I had done better than average, I just thought I could do better. Then being my own boss, subject to a Board of course which I didn’t quite realise could be such a problem but I managed. The other Directors were quite keen when I mentioned the possibility. Probably some of them mentioned it to me. Helen McIntyre and Yvonne Clutterbuck, who were the staff then, well they were very keen and pushed hard for me at that stage and even coined the slogan, it wasn’t ‘All the way with LJR,’ which are my initials, because that was the time Johnston was here. I just can’t remember what the actual thing was, but it was a bit like that. So that sort of enthusiasm pushed me on. My wife was very worried about making a change from a safe and secure public service. But I am satisfied, even though it was a real pressure job and I didn’t get anywhere near the rewards that they are pulling out of credit unions today. It was a satisfying job and I felt I achieved something for people.
So you remember who interviewed you on the Selection Committee? Was Jack Lange there?
LR: Can’t remember Jack. Ken Miller. I think the President at that time was Berry Calverley. Ken Miller was there. It was almost the Board that interviewed me at one stage, probably the final interview.
Did they explain to you why they wanted someone else rather than Clarrie Murphy?
LR: I think it was generally known at that stage that Clarrie was a very nice, dedicated credit union person but he didn’t have that management ability they needed if they were going to go somewhere.
Was that explained to you, or did you already know it?
LR: I think I already knew it.
No-one explained it to him was the problem.
LR: I think it probably was. I think there was a great lack of proper communication in those days. I remember when I started I sat Clarrie down and tried to say, ‘I hope we can work together. I will be trying hard if you will be,’ and that sort of thing. He hung on for a couple of years but then he moved on.
To the insurance company, CIC. I think there might have been something in between actually.
LR: He got involved with a co-operative insurance company.
Yes. The one that is now CIC. I believe it was co-operative then.
LR: Yes. But it has ceased to be gradually.
So what was your first job, first problem when you became Manager of the League?
LR: Well getting my feet wet I guess and finding out what was going on. The first priority really which I first became aware, was very clear. They had then a central banking operation, it wasn’t just banking it was a central operation where credit unions who had surplus money sent a cheque along as a deposit. Then if they wanted a withdrawal they got a cheque back from the League. If they wanted a loan they put an application form in and got a cheque back. So there was no mess about it. But there were only probably about $50,000 in the central fund at that stage, and this is a very rough guess, could have been $70,000, could have been $40,000. Two of the larger credit unions who had most of the money there wanted some of it back and couldn’t be given it back because it was all out on loan to other credit unions. So I immediately wrote out a proposal to put before the Bank Manager and within a month or two I got a $50,000 overdraft. From there on the central didn’t look back because we made sure not all the money ever went on loan, there was always a liquidity level maintained. It grew pretty well, as we will probably talk about later when we talk about central banking particularly. Some people say it was my finest hour, but I don’t think it was it was just good management, it wasn’t my finest hour by any means, or my hardest. But I think we can leave central banking to a special area because it is a major thing.
Yes there are a number of things that I didn’t realise about it which I need to ask you about. So it was 1967 when you became General Manager. Dermot Ryan and Ken Miller and the others came back from overseas and presented various reports and one of them was the Savings Stabilisation Fund Report. Can you remember that and how you tried to implement that?
LR: Well I don’t think anything was done on that in fine detail until I went over to the United States and Canada in 1970. That was one of the main things I looked at apart from the central banking systems over there. I also looked at all the stabilisation funds I visited and got a copy of their records and how they operated. I then came back and with a Committee of the Board set up a proper one, which we called the Savings Protection Fund. I think it was a unique name than what was about at that stage. That proved to be highly successful in that despite the major stabilisation problems we had from 1974 onwards, because of economic circumstances, that lasted for quite a few years. Despite the fact we had to write-off a couple of hundred thousand dollars, I think and again that is an approximate figure, under the Stabilisation Protection Fund not one credit union member, of an affiliated credit union, lost one cent despite all the massive difficulties they had at that time. So that Savings Protection Fund really worked beautifully. Particularly considering it was a volunteer thing, because a credit union could just resign and run away from it. The Savings Reserve Board, which I helped set up just before I left, I was only one of many that set it up, it was a compulsory Government thing which was necessary and we pushed for it. But it was quite a feat I think for all of us to achieve that Savings Protection Fund.
Can you remember the rows there were between Dermot and the rest of the Board and also he took it several times to half-yearly meetings and such like, over the attempts to use the insurance rebates for the Foundation. Or the Savings Protection Fund which actually had a million in the kitty at the end there. He would put it up that they should use this money plus a levy, but that was generally unacceptable, even Ken Miller was against it. Can you remember some of these various occasions, arguments?
LR: That is one that you have only just reminded me of it. It had gone out of memory completely.
I picked it up in Quest and various other places. I also asked a lot of people.
LR: I do remember this. I think probably I was against it at that stage too. I didn’t believe in too much of cross-fertilisation or cross-subsidy. I don’t know what was happening at that stage. This was in the 1970s, so I would have been aware, very much aware of the insurance potential problems at that stage.
No this is 1967 it started. By 1968 they had a million dollars in the kitty and it was a question of whether it would be distributed back to the credit unions. They got it through the Annual General Meeting that it wouldn’t be, that they would hold it.
LR: I don’t think it was a million dollars at that stage of our development. I don’t think we could have possibly generated a million dollars. So my memory is not good in the pre-1970s.
They kept it in one year and they kept in two years and then they kept it in three years. It was voted each time that they should keep it. But the question is what it should be used for. Dermot was after using it for the Foundation.
LR: Do you remember what it was used for eventually?
No, that wasn’t clear.
End Tape 1A: 4504 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.
24 JULY 1990: ANSWCU66: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO LES ROBINSON
Well since you can’t remember that period, can you remember the setting up of Quest?
LR: Yes. I remember this very distinctly that it was brought to the Board without prior discussion with me. I was never in favour of it but I had no choice. At that stage our resources were stretched and I didn’t see it as anywhere near a priority. It eventually turned out to be very time-consuming and didn’t achieve any of the things that it was aimed at. The ideal was idealistic rather than practical. As I say I never favoured it and I was glad when it eventually wound up.
When it did wind up, it appears that they used the, apart from the fact that it wasn’t making money, excuse of Tom Kelly’s pushing of the co-operative bank against the Board’s decision.
LR: That probably had some bearing, but I think generally that people have become aware it was just eating up too much of our resources and not producing any real results. It is generally known that people don’t read their newspapers and it was mainly becoming a vehicle for various people who wanted to express their views. It wasn’t a credit union paper and it wasn’t achieving anything. It was an idealistic thing that appealed to a lot of people and it was hard to convince them. I didn’t push too hard because I knew I couldn’t win. If I knew I couldn’t win, I didn’t push.
I notice that there were two issues that they were pushing in those days, one was consumer protection and the other one is environment.
LR: Yes, well they were all their own little personal barrows were being pushed to a certain extent. I remember a couple of occasions some months before, probably twelve months before, it eventually ceased publication I was given then the task of vetting all the material going in to make sure nothing was said that was completely out of place. A couple of things did happen that were out of place entirely.
Which were those?
LR: Oh, I couldn’t remember now.
It wasn’t the co-operative bank?
LR: Oh no. No. I don’t recollect that. Again there was no point to the co-operative bank, you know. We were a co-operative banking institution in a sense. There was just no point to it. Again a lot of resources were being wasted because of an idealistic sort of approach. We weren’t ready. If there was an advantage in having a banking licence we certainly weren’t ready for it.
Was there talk of picking up a bank from South Australia?
LR: There could have been. I have not clear recollection. A lot of things were being thrown around at that stage. Politically the Labor Government was keen to get more banks and they were very friendly with credit unions of course. It caught the imagination of a lot of people, but again a waste of time. I was the one doing all the hard work of getting the credit union movement going and making sure that remained sound. I found life much harder because of these extraneous things like Quest and co-operative banks and things, which were neither necessary, or practical, or feasible or anything, you know.
So when you arrived there was no proper insurance operational. Was there proper savings loans protection insurance?
LR: Yes there was loan protection insurance. That had been started very early. I am pretty certain that when I started it was with MLC and remained there for some years and was working very effectively, not perfectly, but very effectively. Do you want to get on to the whole insurance?
Well we can do that next if you don’t mind. Apparently while they were in America in 1967 Dermot and Ken Miller and the others encouraged CUNA Mutual, CUMIS, to come to Australia.
LR: For a reason, for the main reason that we didn’t have the bond insurance, which covered all the other insurances of fidelity cover and forgery and fire, all this sort of thing, in one package. It gave the credit union everything it needed and loans protection of course was the only thing outside. But it was a very good package and we didn’t have it here in Australia but saw no possibility at that stage of getting it. But I remember making some improvements to our loan protection scheme. I can’t remember the specifics of it. But it was pretty efficient then that we probably had an overall expense ratio of MLC and our own with no more than about 15 per cent, so everything else was going back in the form of claims or rebates. But we had that weakness of no CUMIS bond. Again as regards times. I think we hadn’t made a change in 1970 when I went across to America. I had heard the stories of CUNA Mutual being the supposed credit union arm, subsidiary arm having the plush prestige offices over there, whereas the counterpart of our League, the national body, were rather poor cousins. I saw that. They were all very nice people and I talked to them and got as much information as I could. It was then they got their licence in Australia to provide the non-life. No, it was the life they were having difficulty in getting the licence for wasn’t it. They eventually got that. I remember Ken Miller and Dermot thought I would be opposed to it and they invited me over to Ken Miller’s one night to have a meeting with just Dermot, Ken and Stan Arneil, who by that stage had moved from the Board to being local Manager of CUNA Mutual. I think they were rather surprised that I wasn’t opposed to a change, because I dearly wanted the CUMIS bond, I dearly wanted that because it was important for credit unions. But I did find out that what they were proposing for the main protection meant that credit unions would be paying more. You have got to remember with insurance that it is the expense ratio that is the crucial thing. Because no matter whether it is operated by this company or that company, they have both got to pay the same claims. So it is their overheads and other things that will lead to the expense ratio. Because what is left after the expense ratio and claims should go back as rebates. Their proposal initially was quite clearly worse that what we had with MLC for the loan protection. I said, ‘Well you know it is silly to do that. As far as I am concerned, insurance is a service it is not a philosophy or anything, it is a service. I am not worried about the fact now because it has happened that CUNA Mutual became an independent group from the credit union movement over there and are now pulling it up against one another rather than working together. That is not worrying me particularly as long as we exercise some control here.’ But they convinced me, and I didn’t take much convincing, but I got verbal assurances from Stan Arneil, and this was my greatest mistake I accepted verbal assurances, that within two years their rates and expense ratio would be competitive with what we had with MLC. The other important thing is we had a master policy arrangement with MLC which gave us very substantial control. I mean if they were knocking back a claim we thought was reasonable, we would say, ‘Pay it,’ and they would do it because it was coming out of rebate in a sense. So we had a fair input as to what was happening, a fair control of the flow and things. That control with the master policy enabled us to make a switch very easily. It was going to be very easy if we lost faith in MLC to change to another one just with the flick of a switch sort of thing. So that was another thing that I wasn’t too happy about with CUNA Mutual, that we didn’t have that same control. But I remember getting them to agree to some reporting to us so that we could exercise a degree of control by reporting policy and things. But we couldn’t get them at that stage to agree for us to act as their agent, as we were with MLC, channelling all the premiums through us and all the claims. But to get CUMIS I gave away on a lot and made, as I said, a basic mistake of accepting verbal assurances. CUNA Mutual in America had a major policy of providing League assistance. They used some of their profits, instead of rebates to come back to the credit union members that had paid the loan protection insurance, they had a system of distributing some of their so-called profits which were really part of the dividends that were due to the credit unions, out to Leagues of their selection. Their favoured Leagues, the ones they wanted to curry favour with, they used a lot of political influence by distributing those League Assistance Grants accordingly. I think generally Ken Miller and Dermot Ryan and myself, we were the strength then, I think we were unanimous that we didn’t want that either, but CUNA Mutual started to move more and more towards that direction. Stan Arneil, being what he was, was definitely going to move more and more to that direction, because he wanted to be king pin of the credit union movement, even though he was working out of the insurance arm.
What about the Policy Holders Advisory Committees which was an established practice which was imported from the USA?
LR: That was purely a PR exercise and a trips for the boys exercise. The field meetings of the Advisory Committees they were just nothing. They were a matter of getting people into a position where they got a few trips around and that sort of thing. Nothing tangible.
But wasn’t it a means of them operating outside the League with non-affiliated credit unions, they would have these people on them?
LR: No, I don’t think they operated outside the League. In those early stages I am pretty certain they didn’t operate outside the League affiliated credit unions. That was one of their firm policies. That would have been one of the things that would have stirred up the problems earlier I think. But I am pretty certain they were sticking to affiliated credit unions, at that stage. Later when the so-called split came, and I don’t call it a split because a split indicates that it was one body that is moving apart, we already had two bodies. CUNA Mutual was a foreign body as far as I was concerned. It was a foreign body in America. It wasn’t under the control of the movement. It was a mutual and mutuals are supposed to be under the control of policy holders but as you know from mutual insurance societies here they are run by and for the benefit of management. This was happening in CUNA Mutual. I am sure a lot of people will resist that and say that it was sour grapes on our part, but I had a firm belief that the movement itself had to control the thing. They made the mistake in America of setting up a separate Board for CUNA Mutual to start with and it was logical that they would grow apart and each develop their own personalities and their own strengths and weaknesses and this is what happened. I certainly didn’t want it to happen here and I am pretty certain Ken Miller and Dermot Ryan didn’t
So as the situation progressed what brought it all to a head? The matter of the changing over of the insurance policy?
LR: Well after about two years I came back to the Executive and said, ‘Look this verbal promise is not being met, as a matter of fact it is getting a bit worse. We are not getting the information we were promised so we could exercise some control. Clearly League Assistance is building up and it is one they want to curry favour with not where it is really needed. In any case the movement should be deciding where money is needed.’ Not Stan Arneil, not CUNA Mutual in Australia, which was Stan Arneil. Following from that I convinced the Executive and then the Board that we should sit down and start talking to them. So we saw Stan and he was not prepared to meet his earlier promise, he was not prepared to acknowledge the earlier promises. He wanted to do his own thing, quite clearly. We had several meetings with people coming from CUNA Mutual America.
Who was that?
LR: You are stretching my memory.
Carlos Matos?
LR: Carlos Matos was certainly one. There was the Chairman of the Board at that stage, or the secondary stage. I remember a Dick someone who was their sort of consulting legal person came out and he sort of led the final thing. Put things up on the board and made a twenty per cent appear to be five per cent. They thought we were idiots I think. I just can’t understand them because we made clear what we had and gave away with MLC, what we could now achieve. But they thought we couldn’t match CUMIS. But by the final sessions I had almost negotiated an alternative for CUMIS. Ken Miller and I then went across to mainly Canada.
What about Hawaii?
LR: There was a meeting with the CUNA Mutual executives in Hawaii which was a waste of time again. They wouldn’t come down to tin tacks in acknowledging we wanted to do things our way. It wasn’t a case of what Les Robinson, or Ken Miller, or Dermot Ryan wanted personally, we thought it was what was important for the credit union movement of Australia. We didn’t want the same arguments going on over there with a split of control.
What about the issue of the pool and where it was? The pool of rebates. Weren’t they holding it in America?
LR: I can’t remember that either. I don’t think that was a major hassle. There was something about the expenses. Part of the expense problem was that there was a very heavy cost coming from the American head office. They had far too big a set-up there. We were managing with very little involvement from MLC because it was a master policy arrangement. We sent one cheque a month and they checked the claims and then sent six back to us. So it was very small administration for them and we had had a very efficient sort of set up. We weren’t trying to finance League Assistance and all these other things and a lot of staff out of it. So clearly we were going to be better. CUNA Mutual hadn’t done anything about streamlining their organisation. If they could have matched their expense ratios, which is a key factor, because if you charge a bit more premium but give a bit more rebate because the expense ratio is lower, the net result is just claims plus a low expense ratio. That is the key. But they were clearly getting worse rather than better on that. They weren’t feeding us information that was crucial to us to keep an eye on what they were doing. They were spending more on League Assistance, not necessarily in areas where their premium dollars were coming from, but from where they wanted to curry favour. I am disappointed to find, Ken Miller tells me now that in recent months a lot of the records of that stage, I wrote very detailed reports for the General Meetings which clearly indicated it was a business decision that we were asking them to make, there was no philosophy involved at all, it was a clear business decision. A lot of people who split at that stage by resigning from the League, who were people who were very close to CUNA Mutual resigning from the League, said that it was personality problems. There were no personality problems. I had a great deal of admiration for Stan Arneil, as much as I doubted his sincerity in a lot of areas. But I had a lot of admiration for his charisma and ability. But he clearly wanted to do things his way.
How much do you think it could possibly be, and I am putting this up as a possibility I am not suggesting that it was a fact, that he was the meat in the sandwich between CUNA Mutual in America and New South Wales League in Australia?
LR: I don’t think so. I think they certainly were supporting him, but I think if Stan Arneil had said, ‘I want to do it this way to work in with the League,’ I think they would have gone along with it. But I can’t be sure of course, I can’t read their minds. But I think it was mainly Stan. It is of interest that during the stage where all the discussions were going on I was at home one morning, very early one morning, and I got a call from Stan Arneil from America. He said, ‘I have been authorised to offer you a position on the CUNA Mutual staff in Australia. Basically you name your own position and your own salary. See if we can’t get this problem settled.’ I said, and I can’t remember exactly, but I probably said, ‘Stan if I could be General Manager and you weren’t. Personally Stan I will love you as a man but I think you are a bloody awful manager of the organisation. If I could be Manager and do it my way and then name my own salary I might think about it. Then I think CUNA Mutual might disappear here very quickly because I would then merge it in with the League. But no I am just not interested Stan, thanks very much.’ Personally I think I would have been a lot better off if I had accepted the offer. From then on I worked very hard. You see the major loss we suffered out of all this endless attention to the insurance there was a lot. Apart from all the meetings and all the discussions I had to develop the CUMIS bond, the whole bond package. Luckily the Co-operative Insurance Company then was a co-operative and they were willing to work with me. I remember Graham Bond it was who was allocated. He later became General Manager of CIC. He was allocated to me and we both worked and we both wrote the whole policy. It was a very detailed policy as you can imagine covering all the non-loan protection insurance things, fidelity, fire insurance and all that sort of thing.
Was that before Clarrie went to work there or after?
LR: Before, I think. No wait a minute Clarrie might have been there before, but he wasn’t there at the time we were doing this. Fortunately this Graham Bond was a very flexible type, as I was, to really write a different policy. I think we came up with a better policy than CUMIS had. It had a few more things in it, was more flexible, it was a master policy. It was beautifully put together as a master policy. Then we also negotiated at the same time a loan protection. So by the time we went to the meeting and said, ‘Let us drop CUNA Mutual because it hasn’t met its promises,’ we had the alternative already there. It was far better than anything CUNA Mutual was offering. Lower expense ratio, lower premiums, high dividends and complete control with the League. It worked beautifully from there on.
Now when it was put to the League as a whole, can you remember where that actual meeting was? I know it was the University of New South Wales but I am not sure if it was Unisearch House?
LR: I think Unisearch House, but there again I am not sure.
Some people say Unisearch House and some people say the Round House.
LR: Six of one and half a dozen of the other because we used both. But we used Unisearch House most times. My memory, because I remember being their at that stage, I think it was Unisearch House because it was a completely different appearance.
Now at the meeting exactly what happened?
LR: Well the Board presented a detailed report which I had written some six or eight weeks before hand. It was not critical of CUNA Mutual merely saying this is a business operation here are the facts. This is what CUNA Mutual is doing, this is what we can now do. Then I gave a verbal presentation, quite lengthy. I explained about CUNA Mutual without denigrating them at all, but saying there was a mistake made in America made many years ago. That they had set up this insurance society and made it a separate society with a separate Board. Naturally it grew apart and it had the strength because it kept some of the money to use for League Assistance, etc. It built up a great political strength in the movement over there. We felt that this was important and that it shouldn’t happen. We were prepared to go along with CUNA Mutual provided they reduce expense ratio, which meant that they then couldn’t get involved in the politics as much because they wouldn’t have the money to do it. This was a business arrangement, here was the comparison. It was a very clear majority.
The problem I have with this is the fact that there appears to have been two meetings. The first meeting was when it was put that CUNA Mutual was not living up to what they had originally promised and the Board was looking for authorisation to try and find another insurer. That was passed. Now was that the main meeting when the whole thing blew up, or was it the next one when you came back with the policy?
LR: I am fairly certain when I came back with the alternatives and they made a final decision, that is when the credit unions started to resign. Could I emphasise the point I was getting to, and I think it is crucial to get it into this insurance debate. I think if I had my time over again I would take exactly the same course, because I think it was crucial for the elected Board of the movement to control the movement. But it was a very costly exercise, very time-consuming. It was very well done and worked perfectly, but that took so much of my time when our resources were stretched to cope. Credit unions were growing at a very rapid rate and we were forming them at a very rapid rate. Our planning, which had been perfect up to that stage, suddenly fell behind. Almost immediately after this insurance we lost credit unions which reduced our income as a League, it wasn’t long after that that we had the stabilisation problems starting. We had started planning, but we hadn’t done the major planning necessary to cope with them. So it was a real major, more than an irritant, a major loss of resources that we couldn’t afford to cope with the later problems of stabilisation. So we had the problems which were very fierce on me particularly at that stage of the insurance debate and getting the alternatives going. Then almost immediately moving into, with less resources because some credit unions had resigned, the stabilisation era. If we hadn’t had that, we would have been much more prepared and sailed through the stabilisation problems.
The meeting where I believe somebody was preparing to put a motion of no confidence, which was forestalled by a motion of confidence in the Board, Jack Bannister moving and Laurie Ryan seconding. Do you remember that? Do you remember who was proposing the motion of no confidence in the first place?
LR: No. It probably came from the ABC. Clarrie Steward was a vital part of all of that, vital part of the opposition to switching from CUNA Mutual. But I am not sure.
Broadbank Credit Union, well Sun-Herald.
LR: Yes Sun-Herald then. ????????? anytime during my term of office. Nor Commonwealth Bank Credit Union.
They kept apart didn’t they? But the others formed the Association of Central Credit Unions.
LR: Well there was previously a Southern Association, with a few credit unions mainly the BHP one down in Wollongong. There was a Northern Association up there around Newcastle. Then the Central. These credit unions that resigned I think as a result of the insurance debate then formed the Central Association with a few of the disaffiliates, or unaffiliated, at that stage.
I understand from Bill Prince that in fact there were three branches of the Southern Association, or two branches, but then they broke off and became separate associations and registered.
LR: Oh, I can’t remember that.
He had some arguments himself with the Southern people and he split off.
LR: This is part of credit unions I suppose. It is a people organisation, it is a movement, and people argue and they disagree. I had trouble, for example, on several occasions because we were building up and putting on staff. I think I started with a staff of about five in 1967. By the time I left in 1978 it was over eighty.
That was one of the arguments of course with the Southern people and the Northern as well, what they were arguing over. They reckoned the dues were too high and there was too much expense.
LR: This is getting right off the track but it emphasises the fact of the importance of dues. After I left the League the Foundation, which is the Credit Union Foundation Board, the group that helps credit unions in nearby Pacific and Asian countries, asked me to go to Tonga and have a look there where there was some assistance going but they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. They came back and made a recommendation that it was the ideal place to try and do something a bit different. Give initial emphasis to the League, set the League up instead of waiting for a number of credit unions to form it, until they are strong enough to form a League. Give assistance so that a League was formed initially and start it off with things like central banking and insurance and providing the services. The accounting service the field service.
End Tape 1B: 4484 Words: 1 hour 35 minutes.
24 JULY 1990: ANSWCU67: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO LES ROBINSON
You were telling me about the setting up of the League in Tonga and the reason that you wanted the League set up first, so to speak.
LR: Well the point I was trying to make was that I was sent over to Tonga by the Foundation because the things weren’t working over there. They were putting money over there and they just weren’t getting the results.
What year was that do you think?
LR: I think from memory it was December 1983 I was across there. While I was there I suddenly saw, I thought, the problem of developing credit unions in under-developed countries, or starting them up anywhere I guess. Traditionally credit unions have just sort of started first. Even when the international movement had sponsored them, they started credit unions first. I saw the major problem, the major answer I thought, to this early stage of getting the League started first with a subsidy and then the League forming the credit unions and having services right from the start. Because of the circumstances over there where I happened to be introduced to a gentleman from Australia who had been over there on a secondment to help set up some development bank over there in Tonga and wanted to stay in Tonga, he would have been available with all the government contacts. He would have been able to set up a centralised banking on a scale that would have worked at that stage. But unfortunately, and this is the crucial thing that I failed to get across to the Foundation when I came back because they didn’t implement my proposals because it was going to cost them almost all their money just on one little area, but the importance I felt was getting a new principle started. What started me on this track just a few minutes ago was the difficulties with credit unions breaking away and forming separate associations and leagues, that sort of thing. I saw the answer, as I was aiming for in New South Wales, to build up such services that credit unions couldn’t not but belong to the League. That the cost of belonging would not be a major factor. But unfortunately they weren’t prepared to wait a lot of them and they went their own ways because of personality problems. All sorts of personality problems. Not only the insurance. I think I started at one stage but I didn’t finish the point, that I built up a staff over my term of eleven years from about five to eighty. Frequently during that time when I’d advertise a position, I would get credit union officials applying for the position. If I didn’t select them I was the worst in the world. On a few occasions credit unions subsequently resigned because that one person, or couple of persons, exercised their influence to take it out because they weren’t selected for a League position. But that was all part of the game I guess.
While we were changing tapes a few minutes ago, you told me a story which you had forgotten to tell about the time when you were at the SGE Credit Union, as it is now called.
LR: Yes, it was when we first started SGE. We got the first few loan applications. Two of them were from people, members of the staff, fellow workers, who we knew gambled too much, drank too much and were just not good managers of money. But they were in real need. They couldn’t borrow from elsewhere and they knew this and they had come to us for help. We were worried about granting the loan, but the Board luckily decided that this was what it was all about even those two loans represented almost all of the eighty pounds, or whatever we had at that stage. It was going just to two people who may not be able to repay the loan at some future stage. We went ahead and gave it to them. I remember saying to them, ‘Now you are bound to have some difficulty in repaying them from time to time. That is OK if you come and tell us what is happening before hand. Don’t wait until you haven’t paid. Come and tell us.’ From thereon they invariably did that. They eventually repaid the loans and from thereon they were the ideal members, they were perfect members. That had a lasting influence on me that this was what credit unions were all about, helping people who were not middle-class people with a good income, but the people who are really in need and can’t be helped elsewhere and really need help. This had a great influence on my future.
We were also talking about some Aboriginal people, again when the tape was off. You mentioned the attempted setting up of an Aboriginal credit union and also the enlargement of other credit unions to become community ones with Aboriginal involvement. You were in some way involved in that.
LR: Yes that was one of our major failures, the Boomerang Credit Union. I would like to get it recorded that history must not judge that as a failure of the Aboriginal people. It was a failure of the credit union movement. At that stage, AFCUL, Dermot Ryan, was very keen to do something in the Aboriginal field. Politically it was wise to curry favour with the Labor Government and I had no objections to that, but I was anxious that we do it in a correct way. But unfortunately because of pressure of other work, it wasn’t done the correct way. It was done more for political kudos than to help the Aboriginal people. Ultimately we didn’t help them and it failed. We didn’t educate them. You see in an early development of a credit union of that style, where people needed their basic needs met, it was important that loans be for productive purposes. The same as if you are forming one in Africa, sections of Africa now, or in Asia. It be important that it be for productive purposes. Not to just pay a debt and go from nowhere, or to buy some food and go from nowhere. It is important that it be for productive purposes that would improve their lifestyle and generate some income earning ability. This is what we should have been on with the Aborigines. We put too much central loan money into it, too much, and we were giving loans out without emphasising at that stage it had to be their money partly at least. But it just got out of hand and clearly it was not going to work. I pushed for it to be wound up. A number of people said, ‘We have got to chase these loans. We can’t let these Aborigines get away with these loans.’ I said, ‘I am not going to be in that for two reasons. One, administratively it would be stupid,’ because they were small loans comparatively and the cost of collecting would be fair too great. ‘Secondly, it wasn’t their fault, it was ours. We did the wrong thing, therefore we shouldn’t try and make them pay.’ So it was clearly our fault. This came to the fore when I remember we were sitting down one afternoon tidying things up and the two Teds, I can’t remember their surnames.
Wymara and Field.
LR: Good man, that’s them. One was from the Torres Strait Islands, Thursday Island, and one was an Australian Aborigine. Fine people, two great people, I really enjoyed working with them for the period I was with them. We were having a get together for their final day when they finished up and I said, and I can’t remember exactly the points I was making, ‘The two big areas that we made mistakes in were this and this. But you two came and said you favour it, so I went along. They were bad mistakes. Why did you favour those?’ They said, ‘We came and told you we favoured them because Dermot Ryan told us that is what we had to say to you.’ I said, ‘That explains a lot. So he was telling you from time to time when we had a meeting with me involved, he was telling you what to say each time.’ They said, ‘Yes. We never believed that was the way to go, but Dermot Ryan told us that this was the way it had to go.’ Now emphasises the point that we made the mess of it, not the Aboriginal people.
What about the Walgett affair. They were extending the Walgett Credit Union. Were you involved in that at all? They were taking Aborigines in that area. It became a community credit union rather than being a council employees’ one, which did in fact happen.
LR: I have got very little recollection.
I have information from other people about that, if you don’t remember it.
LR: I have no real recollection. I know it didn’t work.
It is a community credit union up there, but they didn’t manage to involve the Aborigines into it.
LR: It needed a different approach and it had to get down to the basics. I remember we, the League, used to assist the Government when they would bring people from third world countries out here for training. They would have the co-operative movement coming along and talking to them and also credit unions. We were always very well received at these and the Government was always very pleased with us. But when we got down to basics and started saying this is how it works in principle, as it worked in Germany way back in the last century when it was started, if you got a number of people who could improve their standard of living if they had a few chickens, but if they all wait until they can each buy a few chickens they are not going to get anywhere. They pool their initial resources and one person buys the chickens and gets them going and starts making income and he pays that loan with interest. That interest then goes on to the next one and the next one. We had proved the point that this sort of thing works and when you are getting back to basic people who are on a very basic income you have got to start at that level. Emphasise that it is their money principally. You can put some seed loans into it, but you have got to start at their level of generation of income and build from there.
Do you think there are people who have dropped through the net now, and there are, who the credit union might be able to help in this way?
LR: Look I am sure. It was one of my disappointments, during my eleven years, that we didn’t do anything. We went through the rapid development period, we went through the insurance, we went through the stabilisation. By the time I left though these things were behind us and people were saying, Why are you leaving because all the problems are behind us?’ I said, ‘Well if you think all the problems are behind us you are wrong. There are even greater problems ahead.’ Because of small growth and all sorts of things. But clearly there was then resources and time after my term to get back to the basics of doing something. They tried it in America and Canada and failed. But I am sure there is a way of doing it. I don’t know what the answer is, but I would have liked to have had time to develop it. But the credit union movement hasn’t gone back to doing something for them. They are doing a good job now, as I see it, for the income-earning people, but there are many people in our midst who are not in that category, they need help and they could be helped more I think.
I must admit I think there is some truth in that. I think one of the reasons that we don’t see it so much over here is because the credit union movement in Australia comes from, not middle class people, but mainly from salary earning people and government employees. It started in comparatively affluent times whereas in America it was started during the Depression most of it.
LR: That is right. But that is no excuse for us not to get back and try and get to the lower income groups.
I wanted to ask one question on the insurance thing there before we left that subject completely aside. We have sort of caught up with a couple of things that I have thought of. That was the question of the sacking of Stan Arneil as Manager of CUNA Mutual and CUMIS in Australia. The insurance had been removed from CUNA Mutual-CUMIS and that was a fact. Now he was sacked and there was some story that in fact the impetus for his sacking was from Australia and not from the Americans. If so, then who was it and did you have any involvement there?
LR: No. I have no knowledge of that. I thought, my understand from what I heard was that the people they had over in America were unhappy with Stan at some particular point and that is why he went. Certainly the New South Wales League had no direct involvement, any involvement. I certainly didn’t. Whether AFCUL did I doubt. I think it was purely that there was some clash of personalities between Stan and people over in America. That is my recollection.
Fair enough. Now to go on to the setting up of the central. Can you take that story through? What was the state of play when you first took over as General Manager. I know it had been proposed, that Don Harvey had brought a report back from America, but what was the state of play when you took over?
LR: Well there was a central operating in that credit unions were, as I mentioned earlier in tape one, that credit unions who had surplus funds were sending a cheque along to make deposits in the central bank. If they wanted to withdraw a cheque was sent out. If they wanted a loan an application came in and the cheque was sent out to them. It was almost at a standstill when I took over because there wasn’t a great deal of money, and what money there was was out on loan to a few credit unions. Some credit unions who had deposits wanted withdrawals and couldn’t get them. I arranged fairly quickly a bank overdraft of, I remember, $50,000 which put the thing on its proper footing. From then I made sure sufficient liquidity was retained to meet reasonable withdrawals. It grew from there, but always hindered by this need to lodge cheques. Then in 1969, I think, we read of what was happening in Canada particularly. America was a long way behind Canada in this central operation. How Canada had devised a scheme that got an automatic depositing in central. This was one of the main reasons I went over in 1970. But when I looked at it, and I think I saw three Canadian Leagues’ operations, I knew it wouldn’t work in Australia. The best way that I can describe it is that they were treated as a branch of the bank that they were working with. That were given all the cheques and deposit slips. Then they had to sort them and post them up to the individual credit unions. They were invariably behind, which was no good, and the volume of work was crazy. But the benefit if it could be worked was great because every credit unions’ surplus was automatically in central. This was great because credit unions didn’t have to make a decision, it was just there. Once they had decided to participate every surplus cent was in the central and could be used for the maximum benefit of credit unions. One of the management philosophies I have gained during the years I have been a great believer in the KISS principle, Keep It Simple, Stupid. I have developed from that one of my theories that people faced with a complex problem will tend to look for a complex answer. Since I woke up to this I have tended to look for a simple answer always. On the many planes I was on over there and in five weeks I think I was in twenty-three different motels and twenty-nine different planes.
Were you on your own?
LR: Yes. I gained a lot of information. This came to me that what I was trying to achieve was for all this money and it would be fairly simple if the banks would go along with it. There was no way the banks in Australia, because I knew the way they worked, would not agree to us operating as a branch and them passing out cheques and withdrawal slips to us. I worried about it when I developed it and then presented it to the ANZ Bank that we were with at the time. I very much doubted they would go along with it but they were very happy with the idea. They didn’t have sophisticated computer systems themselves at that stage. This was the idea. We got credit unions to all open their cheque account at the ANZ Bank at different branches. They would deposit all their receipts into the League’s bank account, so they would have League deposit slips. All the incoming money would come into the League’s account. At the end of each day, or the first thing next morning, the ANZ Bank gave us all the overdrafts essentially, because all the debits had come into each credit union account during the day. It was totalled up by them and they would give us the list. Then we would present to them that morning the deposit slips to clear those debits for the previous day, drawn on a cheque covering the total which was drawn against the League’s account. So this effectively got all the credit union money in. Whatever they spent during the previous day went out the next morning from the League’s account. So every surplus cent was very simply in the League’s account. Gradually this system improved because this was a little bit time-consuming in doing all these deposit slips and things. Eventually it reached the stage where they were computerised and could automatically transfer end of day balances, so that the credit unions, as it is now I am sure, did all their normal banking through the one account, deposits and cheque writing, withdrawals, and then the net result was cleared to the League’s account automatically by the bank’s computer. But this then really made the central effective and led from strength to strength there.
There was another bank change. Was that during your time, to the National?
LR: No. That was a bit after my time, the National started. I stayed with the ANZ right through.
While we were talking about computerisation there, what about the accounts of the League? How did they stand and how were they operated when you first arrived? How did you bring them along as you went on as Manager?
LR: We had a good bookkeeper when I started, Jan O’Mealee who unfortunately died some years later from cancer. But she was always very accurate and I always left the League accounts to her. They were manual during my time. We did start to use machines, but I hadn’t gone to computer. I wasn’t one to rush into computers. I believed in standing back and waiting until I was sure of what I was doing before I went into computers. I had seen too many problems. We had enough problems getting a decent computer system for credit unions and the League’s volume didn’t warrant it I felt.
So were you involved in getting a system for the credit unions? I remember Dermot, and not only Dermot but others in Sydney that they thought they were the first to become computerised. That was only the batch system. They went down to IBM and asked them to write a program for them. They became batch system operated and not on their own computer. They reckoned they were the first financial institution in Australia to have a computerised system.
LR: Quite possibly correct. I have no recollection. I am sure a few other credit unions will tell you they were the first. But this was the general trend, credit unions were doing their own thing for a while. The League then started to try and get a uniform system. I remember we had a lot of negotiations because the greatest number of credit unions were with a company called DPMS in Sydney. We eventually endorsed that as the approved sort of system for credit unions. Against my better judgement, but I couldn’t convince, or the League Board couldn’t convince the larger credit unions to make a change. My favourite one was a company that was associated with St George Building Society I think. They were prepared to do a special program for us based on their St George one. I felt that would offer the best prospects. But I couldn’t get the credit unions to agree so we stayed with DPMS during my time. It wasn’t perfect by any means.
Quite a lot of credit unions were using their employer-organisation computers. The Water Board and people like that, and the County Council.
LR: Yes they were all very higgly-piggledy and not tremendously satisfactory.
Ron Preston who was at the City Council, he was a Director in the City Council Employee’s Credit Union, he went over and used the Water Board’s one for the Council purchases. But he first learnt while working with IBM for the credit union.
LR: There was a later story after I had left the League. My intentions were to form a Management Consulting Company, but I agreed to go in with a group of people from the League staff. One of my last planning efforts before I left the League, the last twelve months I was there, and I resigned by the way because of the pressures of those insurance years, those stabilisation years, they were great. My health had suffered. In 1975 I had my first heart attack and the pressure wasn’t going to ease. I could have pulled the League back to my level of performance, but I didn’t want to do that. So I decided to go and to get away from the pressure. But during that last twelve months I did a lot of forward planning. One of them was, as I saw over in Canada, particularly Canada, where they had these Saving Protection Funds, Stabilisation Funds going and separately set up. Whereas we had been spending eighty per cent of our resources looking after the bad credit unions, I could see it was important for the League to spend one hundred per cent of its resources on the good credit unions. If a credit union went bad there should be some separate little organisation to look after it. This was what was happening with good results in Canada. So part of the planning was that we aimed towards this, even though we hadn’t got to the Government Savings Reserve Fund at that stage. We had on the Stabilisation Fund at that time Geoff Cambridge who was a tremendous help in getting the stabilisation credit unions under control. He had tremendous abilities in that area, also limitations as we all have. After I left he sort of became the go and the Registrar, David Horton at that time, was keen because of his abilities to have him separate so he could appoint him as Administrator of unaffiliated credit unions. But it was badly handled, so I went in with them and formed Credit Union Consultants, or CU Consultants we called ourselves. I talked to all the Directors by phone and I thought I had their support, but I didn’t. There was a lot of antagonism. I can understand Reg Elliott’s feelings. It was badly handled from our side, particularly from Geoff’s coverage. He rushed it whereas I wasn’t prepared to talk for three months until I had had a rest. But he pushed me into doing it earlier. But that was a mess. If the League had gone along and if we had handled it correctly, that would have been a very positive thing for the League. But leading on to computers. While we were there we were looking round for computer systems for the credit unions who were under our control, stabilisation credit unions where Geoff was the Administrator. We were the CU Consultants doing the work helping to stabilise credit unions. We looked everywhere and we went across to Perth to look at one and we decided this was the best system. We came back over. We said right we would order four, I think, systems for the four credit unions under our control. They said, ‘Look, would you like to set up a company over there to handle the marketing of our system over there?’ We said fine but we would have to talk about it. We then decided Geoff, Pat Taylor who came from the League staff, and myself it would only work when the League’s blessing is there. So I went representing CU Consultants. I went to the League Executive including Reg Elliott and said, ‘We’ve got this offer. We have gone a bit further down the track, but we haven’t come to final details. But we think this is the best system. We would like to talk to you about how you see it fitting in. My thinking when I was in charge of the League, and I am not now, was that based on experience I had seen over in America and Canada, the League would be better not owning its own computer hardware and that. Rather contract to different contractors and if one wasn’t performing you could switch. But I am not running it now so what do you want to do? How can we work in with you?’ Well they then, the League staff Terry Macmanus, went over to Perth with all sorts of threats. As a result they pulled out of our arrangement. We could have taken them to court and sued them for a lot of money, but there was no point we felt. We stayed with 24.5 per cent because the League wanted 51 per cent. Whereas we were going to be 50:50 with the Western Australians. The League wanted 51 per cent, so we stayed with 24.5 per cent. But after a few months we decided it wasn’t going to work, so we sold back the 24.5 per cent to the Western Australian group and then we dropped right out of it.
That was the start of FCS?
LR: Yes, that was the start of FCS.
It was a disaster for you.
LR: It was a disappointment that after all the hard work that I had put into the League that I was treated that way. When I had gone openly to them and said this is it, what can we do together.
End Tape 2A: 4595 Words: 1 hour 35 minutes.
24 JULY 1990: ANSWCU67: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO LES ROBINSON
Leading towards the Stabilisation Fund, which became the Savings Protection Fund, which became the Reserve eventually, how exactly did your involvement start? I mean we have mentioned Dermot Ryan and his end of things, but that didn’t really start things very much at that stage.
LR: Well one of my tasks when I went over to the States in 1970 was to look at the various stabilisation funds over there and come back with an improved arrangement at home. As a result we set up the Savings Protection Fund, which as I mentioned earlier, worked very effectively until eventually the Reserve Board was set up just after I left the League. But in the last twelve months I was there I played a part with a lot of other people in setting it all up. If we could talk now about the actual stabilisation problems of credit unions, which started in 1974. In 1974 the economic problems we had for the first time in our history a very substantial increase in interest rates, to my knowledge. They just shot through the roof. People were just not prepared to cope with that sort of thing. We suddenly had a very substantial rise in unemployment. We had a credit squeeze. We had all sorts of problems. Unemployment then bad debt increases, people trying to cope with new interest rate structures that we weren’t prepared for, all these economic problems all hit at the one time. As I have also mentioned before, because of our prior preoccupation with the insurance problems, our planning hadn’t been kept up to date as well as it should have been. As a result the stabilisation problems were far worse than they should have been. We knew from overseas experience that after the period of rapid development of new credit unions that we had had, we had to have some problems. You just can’t have them all running perfectly. But we thought we would be ready for them, however, because of the insurance intrusion we weren’t. It was a major hassle but it was a lot of credit to us that we got through. A lot of credit to a lot of people who worked extremely hard that we got through so well. We had to write off a couple of hundred thousand dollars, I think, from the fund. I remember when the Waterside Workers’ Credit Union resigned, the Chairman of that, Charlie Fitzgibbons, said that he was firmly convinced we were going to write off a lot more. I said, ‘You are wrong. We will not. I have already assured the Board that we won’t. They have already accepted it. Why do you say that we are going to do that?’ He had no answer, but his credit union resigned from the League. With credit unions resigning because our resources were that much less it just increased the problems. But it proved correct that we wrote no more money off.
Whose idea was the Common Board?
LR: I wouldn’t like to say whether it was a member of the League staff, whether it was mine or one of the Directors, I don’t know. Clearly we had to get the problem credit unions under a central control so that we had minimum decision-making. Getting a Common Board seemed to be a logical solution to that. Who thought of it I don’t know. But it worked fairly well. Also a number of things worked well. Geoff Cambridge was encouraged to come onto the staff at that time. He turned out to be invaluable in this particular area. He would not have made a good General Manager of the League because he wasn’t that type of character. But to tackle particular problems and face facts as he had to, he had the ability to sort of say, ‘Let’s bring all the problems out where we possibly can. Face them, record them in the accounts and then we can only improve from then.’ That was a big thing that he contributed. Also the forceful way in which he did a number of things. Although he tended to get a great majority of the credit, and I will give him a lot of credit too, I will still take that overall credit in that he came up with ideas but I decided which ones were implemented and which ones weren’t. I made the decisions and therefore I take a lot of credit for those stabilisation things. We did a number of things that got out of control. One big thing that got out of control. Remember Peter Symmons, a Field Manager, came to me one day and said, ‘Look, we are not going to get these problem credit unions out of their problems unless we get some staff. Now the only way we can get some staff is if we start using credit union deposits, the credit union deposit money to actually enable us to go into deficit budgeting.’ I thought about it and worked out a lot of detail with him and I said, ‘All right we will try one.’ I got the Board’s OK to try it. This wasn’t just a hit and miss thing, we did a lot of budgeting, preparation of budgets. We made sure we reviewed budgets, stuck to budgets and had performance things coming out. Everyone that we did it for, and we did it for a number of credit unions, they worked. Because if things weren’t working we would do something about it. If we weren’t meeting budgets we would do something. There was no point in just keep on going. Where it all went wrong was that people were so impressed with what we were doing they went off and did it as a budget. But they didn’t budget, they just went into deficit and spent more and more money. This spread beyond New South Wales unfortunately. But they just got the message to spend more money than you have got, buy staff to do things. But the word that this must be accompanied by a clear budget, clear controls and everything else that goes with it so that if things aren’t up to budget, if performances aren’t up to budget, you do something about it. So some credit unions in New South Wales and particularly in other States, not particularly but more unfortunately, because they were copying us but only copying one little aspect of the whole deal.
Several people were against deficit budgeting. George Prescott and Ken Byrne are two that I can think of.
LR: Hundreds of people.
Bob Meyer, the Accountant.
LR: Yes a lot of people. We proved it worked. We proved it worked at the League itself. We accomplished so much more by using more than we had, by spending more than we had, but it was always under control. We had a budget that we stuck to and if the performance wasn’t there we would do something about it. The people who made a mess of it were the people who weren’t doing all the necessary things that go with it. Then they were blaming deficit budgeting. But they weren’t doing it the right way. Unfortunately it got out of hand. But if I had my time over again, I would have done exactly the same because it was the only way to get a number of credit unions, that are now beautiful, big well-managed credit unions, out of difficulty. I could rattle of names if you want, but they would be in the records somewhere. It worked, but it also caused major problems. Things like the Communication Credit Union, they just were going crazy. Part of what we worked out, the staff worked out with Geoff, Pat Taylor and myself particularly, we would come to grips with what the real deficit was, the worst possible situation and bring that to the Accountant of the credit union. But then we weren’t going to write that off to the Savings Protection Fund because the credit union was now operating profitably, there was no point. We were going to keep on making it profitable, profitable and more profitable until eventually it would pay most of the deficit itself and we might pick up some at a later stage. Now when I had my first heart attack in 1975, that is three months I was off, the Board for some reason completely went against that. Started closing credit unions which forced us to bring into the Savings Protection Fund these losses. They were then profitable. They weren’t very profitable, but they were profitable. I went to the first Executive meeting and I said, ‘Why have you changed direction?’ They sort of looked at me. I said, ‘Do you realise what you are doing? If you close this one you have now got to write off so much money, $20,000, $40,000, whatever it was. Now you are talking about another three or four or whatever. Do you recognise what you are doing?’ They said, ‘Well we thought it was best to face the fact.’ I said, ‘Do you realise what you are doing, that you are writing off the fund and giving us no chance at all to get those credit unions to recover. You are writing off those members too.’ They said, ‘Oh well we will go back to what you were doing.’ That was real crazy. It was a bad time. That was when another staff member I would like to mention, Ron Swanson, who was a very valuable member of staff. He was a Development Manager for most of the time. He was the one that when we did a lot on education, he did most of that. Education of credit union members and officials. I believe that was one of our great success stories. I know I am getting away from the stabilisation, but I think it is important that I record this. He also took over when the Education Department approached us about getting into schools something about credit and that. We prepared a kit, including a book called Money Go Round and some tapes and things, teacher’s aids. It was very well done with the aid of the Education Department. But here again Ron Swanson deserves the credit for that, it was very well done.
Was Steve Birt involved at that time as well or not?
LR: I don’t think he was at that stage. This was early in the piece. I can’t remember, but it was mainly Ron that was doing that. It was Ollie Rozmeta, who was working with the Education Department at the time of that, and eventually joined our staff at a later stage and became our Education Officer. Also a very good man in his role. Again, as many people do, one of the things I frequently said to the staff, ‘Look you are excellent in that field. If you are ever offered anything outside it, think to yourself whether you are going to be as excellent with that as you are in that particular field.’ Ollie was excellent in what I had him doing, then he started to accept promotions outside that area. I tend to promote people in their area of expertise and give them more pay. I would rather do that than put them in some areas that they weren’t suited for. It is such basic management that so few people do it.
I only know him as a photographer.
LR: Oh yes. Well Ollie was tremendous at the education, excellent man, excellent. But I am getting off Ron, he was good.
What about Malcolm Samuels?
LR: Mal had his day.
What was his job there?
LR: He was initially brought in on the development, to develop no end of community credit unions wasn’t it. Yes we had the community credit unions going. But eventually the need for him disappeared and he had to move on. But keeping on Ron Swanson, I thought of him particularly because he had to act as General Manager when I was away for three months. The Board, much to their discredit, made it extremely difficult for him and he almost had a breakdown. He is fine now, as I understand it, I haven’t seen him for a great many years.
Committed to hospital for a hernia operation yesterday.
LR: I am pleased you told me, otherwise he is OK.
Otherwise he is OK. He is working at the Advance Bank in Parramatta.
LR: I let him go and he feels that I let him down by letting him go. But I felt that the best way for him to get back on his feet was to leave the League. He wasn’t going to cope back there I didn’t feel in a senior position. I was quite willing to use him but I had to let him go. I don’t know whether he still blames me for that, but I think by throwing him back into the deep end forced him back to reality and really improved his health out of sight. I think he has made it from then. Whether he’s acknowledged the fact that I did the right thing by him I don’t know. But he was one of the stalwarts. As Peter Symmons was and Bill Stone. As Ollie was on education. I shouldn’t mention names because I am sure to miss a number of them. But I will gradually pick them up as we keep on talking. But back to the stabilisation. Well we got back on track after that three months off after my first heart attack. I don’t think there is a great deal we haven’t talked about. Oh yes, we saw the way to get out of the problems of some of the credit unions was to expand them and develop community credit unions. We were almost entirely then what you call industrial or employee-type credit unions. To get out into the community was the way to get back to our grass roots, if you can use that term, of helping the people in real need, or getting closer to helping them. So we developed a special team to develop these credit unions that were selected to become community credit unions and got approval to change their bond. They were very hard work, extremely hard work. I just don’t know how successful they have been as community. A number of them I am pretty certain have been successful. The Metropolitan Credit Union, for example, is almost entirely a community one now. There are some employment groups in it. But just how successful some of the others like the big industrial ones who took in part community are I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t been in touch.
The Metropolitan took in a Common Board didn’t it?
LR: Yes that is right. That was formed from a number of credit unions and they then amalgamated to form Metropolitan.
What about the Hibernian?
LR: Hibernian?
Universal?
LR: Oh Universal, yes. Universal was generally recognised as that first credit union in Australia. It was most unfortunate that eventually had to be part of the merging operation into Metropolitan, whatever it was called then. It was most unfortunate but there was no alternative to it, it was the way it had to go.
Tom Kelly was very annoyed about that I think. I was talking to Ray Cooper, of course, who was in it at the time and he thought it was the only thing to do.
LR: It was very understandable that Tom would be disappointed. I was disappointed. Because Universal was our first. But there didn’t seem to be any alternative at that stage. Possibly, I don’t know why we didn’t, sort of bring them altogether and call them all Universal. I can’t remember why we didn’t.
You called it a Common Board instead. I don’t know why they didn’t. I think it might have been the Catholic thing.
LR: No, I don’t think so. I was Catholic and I wouldn’t be against it because Universal started off as a Catholic credit union. The majority of the League Board at one stage I think we were Catholic too. Not that we aimed that way, but certainly it wasn’t against any Catholic movement, or being against Catholics at Universal. It was just the logical thing to do at the time, but it wasn’t a philosophical thing or the sentimental thing to do probably.
What shall we get on to next in the way of a subject? What about individual people? Or would you like to nominate a subject next.
LR: I have talked about the earlier period of all that we did. We had very good Field Service staff. We set up Special Development staff. A very sophisticated Supply Department and our central banking. All these were working very well.
How about the collections?
LR: That came after during the stabilisation period. Again, this was another credit to Geoff Cambridge that he was largely responsible for getting that going which was essential of course. We have talked about the stabilisation problems and the various saving protection funds. The deficit problems. We haven’t yet talked about the League building.
A lot of people have been attacking you on that, the using of the Savings Protection Fund money on that. There have been for and against of course.
LR: It was a form of investment of League funds. It wasn’t just Saving Protection Fund money. On one side of the balance sheet you had League deposits in central and you had this and that and something else, League capital and the Savings Protection Fund. On the other side you had an investment in the building, which has turned out to be a very good investment. So why people would criticise it I don’t know.
They are saying you couldn’t have laid your hands on the money if you had needed it from the Stabilisation Fund.
LR: We had stand-by credits and overdrafts and all sorts of things. Nothing I did while I was there that wasn’t planned. Nothing.
It worked out.
LR: The perfect planning wasn’t there because of the intrusion of insurance problems. But planning was still there. That building was planned. It was the thing to go. It was an excellent investment and proved to be a success. So the ones who criticised can do their own thing.
I have heard for and against actually.
LR: If you try and wait for unanimous approval you would never do anything.
What about legal changes? Were you involved in the lobbying towards the setting up of the Reserve?
LR: Oh yes. I was heavily involved in the Committee that set out the way we wanted the Reserve to go. Of course I had the more detailed experience and I think I was Secretary of the Committee as well as a lot of say. I was never involved that I didn’t say my piece.
Was it your decision to give information to Father Gallagher so that he could have his say as well? It is just that I ran across some paper work in the old records of the Association to the effect that this paper was for Father Gallagher. Of course several people have told me that he used to turn up and argue on the opposite way.
LR: No. I don’t know when that all happened. It wasn’t certainly in the setting up of the Savings Reserve Board. It was far before that time. As a matter of fact I don’t think I ever met the man. He had great ideals to start with but couldn’t carry them through in this Antigonish movement.
Oh his credit union is still going.
LR: Some of them are. But they weren’t going anywhere in our day. He would never talk to us and was never anxious to get together with us and affiliate with us.
Well after you apparently were no longer in the position there as General Manager and he was retired forcibly to the Little Sisters of the Poor, he used to turn up at any delegations and argue the opposite case.
LR: Well good luck to him. He was one of the characters of the movement as I understood it. He will certainly play a big part in history. That is another thing I want to talk about, the characters of the movement.
I never recorded Dermot Ryan but so many other people have told me stories that Dermot used to tell about Father Gallagher. Father Gallagher gave Dermot his start in credit unions.
LR: Yes that is right. But I can’t remember any of these stories. I have never been one to remember a great deal of stories. As you found now I tend to remember as you prompt the memory. But stories are not a part of it. I have a heading here on my own notes of great mistakes that I made. One was accepting the verbal assurance of Stan Arneil and CUNA Mutual about doing the things the way we generally wanted them done. Another big mistake was the Boomerang Credit Union, one that I regret very greatly, we have already covered that. I am sure I have made many others, but I did use the word great. I won’t mention the small ones. I will probably think later of some of the other great ones. The national scene, this is AFCUL, this is important. AFCUL had been formed before my day, I am fairly certain.
1956.
LR: 1956, that’s right so quite well before.
No sorry 1965. The League was formed in 1956.
LR: 1965 that’s right. I joined in 1977. At one state I was sort of part-time as General Manager of the League I was also AFCUL Secretary. I didn’t devote a great deal of time to the national scene because I felt the best way to serve the credit union movement was to make sure the League was operating as effectively as it good. I didn’t devote a great time. Of course the national scene was again another scene of disunity where politics played a great part and this would have been very time consuming.
But you had set up some things before Dermot took over as Chief Executive Officer hadn’t you? The Foundation was set up before you were Secretary?
LR: No. I take very little credit for any AFCUL leads. I didn’t do much at all. As I said I was concentrating heavily.
It is just that I turned you up as Secretary.
LR: I was early in the piece but did little more than act as Secretary at meetings and things like that. Didn’t last for more than a year or so. I had more than a full-time job at the League. But I had this listed because I wanted to talk about it, but now my memory is failing me as to the points that I wanted to raise about AFCUL.
Dermot and the taxation?
LR: His great triumph. No-one else could have achieved that taxation thing as Dermot did. I would have gone around it by writing a lot of letters. He did it politically by talking to people and carrying the numbers. He was great at doing that.
He had a bit of help from Vince Martin and a few people like that.
LR: But I give Dermot ninety-nine per cent. A lot of people claim credit, I claim none and give Dermot ninety-nine per cent for that one. He made a lot of mistakes and that one he did very well. I am still amazed that it is still there, that the exemption is still there, or the substantial easing of tax for credit unions is still there.
What about the AFCUL office in Lidcombe?
LR: Again it was one of Dermot’s mistakes. I think it was more what Dermot wanted rather than what was good for AFCUL. When Dermot was first appointed to AFCUL as Chief Executive I was asked to sit on the selection committee. I knew that Dermot had the numbers on it already so I just declined. That was one of the great mistakes I made. We are now talking about people, and this is probably the time to do it. But one of the AFCUL Schools when I was General Manager, I was down at the AFCUL School. One of the speakers was an industrial chaplain from Victoria who had got involved with credit unions and was up here, a very good man. He was an Anglican Minister I am fairly certain.
Bob Clayton.
LR: That’s it, you’re good. Well I drove him from Newport to the airport. He had to go home before the School was finished and I was going back to the office. So I drove him to the airport and on the way he said, ‘I hope you don’t mind. I know you are a person of some influence in the movement, I would like to say something.’ I said, ‘Fine, I am always willing to listen to people.’ He said, ‘You have got two very charismatic characters in the movement, Dermot Ryan and Stan Arneil.’ He said, ‘It is absolutely essential you keep them involved. If any movement like the credit union movement, a movement of people, is going to succeed you must have these charismatic people. It is essential. But don’t in any way let them get involved in administration or management. Never let that happen.’ I said, ‘Well you are a little bit late. Stan Arneil is already General Manager of the credit union insurance society, CUNA Mutual. I know what you say is right, because he is not going to be the Manager of it. Dermot Ryan has got his heart set on becoming Chief Executive Officer of AFCUL and I know that will be a great mistake. His strength is what you say, charismatic. His strength is on the League Board level.’ If I had been a bit more sensible and a bit stronger I would have stayed on that selection committee and then argued against his appointment in front of him. It was the wrong thing for him and it was the wrong thing for the movement. But I guess I didn’t have the guts.
If you didn’t want to get into a punch up, you didn’t.
LR: Yes, it would have been an argument. I found with Dermot from my first Board meeting, this is what Dermot did invariably he tested you out right from the start, he was a member of the Executive and he made sure he was sitting on my left hand and the Chairman was on my right hand. Half way through the meeting he said, ‘You give me the shits.’ I said, ‘Dermot you have got no idea how far greater my feeling is about you in the same direction.’ We got on pretty well because we were honest with one another from then on. This is the way you had to be with Dermot. Stand up to him as much as he stood up to you. But I didn’t on that occasion and that was a great mistake. I missed him at the League Board level, because he had a tremendous ability, Dermot, to get to the guts of the problem right from the word go. He would frequently say to Ken Miller of myself, ‘Oh you are bloody idiots. What are you talking about, it is all rubbish? This is the problem we have got, not what you are talking about.’ He would invariably be right. His political judgement was good, his political knowledge and abilities were excellent, top class. His ability to get to the crux of the matter was great. But he was not an administrator and that is where it all went wrong. He messed up AFCUL in many ways. I know he blamed me for losing his job as Chief Executive Officer and I pushed the Board to do something about it, the League Board. But I don’t think they did it the correct way. Again I should have got involved more probably. These are other mistakes. I should have got involved more myself because he was losing support in every League. The people from the other Leagues were telling me, but they weren’t telling Dermot.
End Tape 2B: 4747 Words: 1 hour 45 minutes.
24 JULY 1990: ANSWCU68: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO LES ROBINSON
Could I ask you a bit about the personalities in the movement that you might have met over the period of time? You met Father Ganey, for instance, how did he impress you?
LR: A lovely man as everybody feels. But I doubt whether he was going in the right direction, particularly in the last few years in that he wasn’t allowing the Fijians to live in the real world. He was sort of protecting them and that was crazy. My last involvement was when the Foundation asked me, after I had left the League, to go and have a look at the Tongan situation. I dearly wanted to go and talk to Father Ganey and the League people in Fiji and they wouldn’t talk because they felt Australian credit unions had done the wrong thing because they had fostered the Tongan movement. I agree, Australia, in my opinion, did do the wrong thing. Not intentionally, but they did the wrong thing. They shouldn’t have got involved in Tonga without talking to the Fijians first. But then to say, ‘You can’t come and talk to us because you did the wrong thing,’ that is quite stupid in my opinion. The real world is that Australia had made a mistake and was trying to straighten it out and the best way to straighten it out was to talk. But notwithstanding those small things, Father Ganey was a lovely man. Had a great philosophy and was a beautiful speaker about credit union philosophy and held a great deal in our early years.
What about Stan Arneil? I know you have had your battles with him.
LR: I’ve never really had a battle with Stan, although Stan would say so. We disagreed about CUNA Mutual. I said CUNA Mutual wasn’t performing to promises and this is where, for business reasons, I recommended and eventually got the League Board and League membership to agree to change. Stan I recognise, as we spoke earlier, is a very charismatic character if he had remained in that role at the League Board level or the National Board level, but he was never a Manager. Some people are not born to be Managers so why try. You have got to remain in the area where you are most experienced and you can do the best thing for yourself. Whether he was reacting against that I don’t know. I was more than happy to talk to Stan but I haven’t run into him in recent years. I doubt if he would talk to me now, but still that was Stan Arneil. A very charismatic character but certainly not a Manager and certainly didn’t run CUNA Mutual to the best advantage of either the movement or CUNA Mutual in my opinion.
Were you party to his involvement, or do you know anything about his involvement, at Shop Distributors and Allied Credit Union?
LR: When this union was thinking about forming a credit union they invited someone from the League to go down and talk to them. By that stage stabilisation problems had commenced, from memory. I went down and recommended to this group that was looking into the question of setting up a credit union, I said, ‘Look my very firm recommendation is you do not set up a credit union because your membership is too widespread. There is no real common bond there.’ I took a lot more time to say it in some detail, but that is basically why I recommended against it. They said they had got advice to the contrary and they were going ahead with it and I said, ‘Well fine. We will help all we can, but my advice is don’t do it. I am prepared to sit down with you and talk about alternatives but not union-based because I don’t think this is the right way to go if you want a successful credit union.’ Later, when I was no longer with the League, I was invited as a representative of CU Consultants to go down at the meeting at the Registry which sort of wound the whole thing up and even to the one before that where there was some possibility that the League might take up the losses to save credit unions having bad publicity. I was sitting across the room from the same people who I had made the recommendation to some years ago. It took me a long time to hold my tongue and say, ‘Well, I told you so.’ It didn’t really get off the ground at any stage and made a real mess. That is it, that is all I know about it.
So you didn’t think he could have made a success out of it at all?
LR: No one could of, the bond just wasn’t a close enough bond. We had had experience of similar situations and they hadn’t worked.
What about the MEU, the Municipal Employees’ Union? You had been involved with setting up quite a number of credit unions with Peter McMahon, I don’t know whether Stan Arneil, but others out of that union around municipalities.
LR: Yes. By that time staff were mainly involved but certainly all this flowed through Stan and the City Council Credit Union, what was then the Sydney City Council Credit Union. Peter McMahon was heavily involved from the union’s point of view. There was a lot of support there. They were a different situations that the SDA we were talking about. You know there was a clear bond of membership and they worked well. I still see Peter McMahon occasionally.
I have got a picture here of you and Ken Miller and Peter McMahon sitting on a platform. It was a picture out of the MEU’s paper. I was going to ask you what occasion this was?
LR: Can’t remember it. In case I haven’t made the point already, I was eleven years at the League, I am now twelve years past it, so it is up to twenty-three years ago we are talking about. I have got no recollection at all of that.
What about some of the other people. I mean your involvement with Ken Miller must have been very wide over a period of time? Can you remember when you first met him?
LR: Well I am pretty certain it was after I became General Manager of the League was the first time. I think he was then Vice President. Fortunately, soon after I started he became President. Berry Calverley was the first President that I was under. Berry, a nice fellow as he was, was never a leader. Ken Miller was a completely different person. One of the best Chairman of a big General Meeting as you would find. Did his homework very well, did it extremely well. Once you convinced him of a direction that you should take, Ken was always there with his full support. More than any other man in the Australian movement he walked the credit union boards much longer and was much more of a force than any one else around.
Did he tend to pre-judge issues before a meeting?
LR: Ah yes. Look in the case of pre-judging, we didn’t take airy-fairy things to the meetings. We presented everything in fine detail during my term. We were clear on our recommendations. So it wasn’t a case of pre-judging, it was pre-deciding the best course to take. We didn’t always win, but most times we did. Especially in the last few years that I was there we had these regional conferences and we used these as a sounding board. If we had an idea we would sort of sound it out and judge the reaction. Sometimes we would get different approaches and different ideas. We would then put it all together and the General Meeting became almost a formality because they had all be thrashed out earlier on. But Ken was a really great force and a real philosopher early in the piece. He once said to me that he decided when I applied for the job to hitch his star to my wagon, sort of thing, and he did give me good support from then on. But I had to earn it. He also mentioned on occasions that he was impressed by the fact that I was offered a contract when I first joined the League, but I said I wasn’t worried if the time came when the League didn’t want me. I didn’t want a contract. I think from a personal point of view I think I was stupid, but I was stupid in those days about something. But I am talking about me now instead of Ken. I was looking forward to sitting down with Dermot one day. I could never quite understand the reason for Ken Miller’s power, because he did have a lot of power in the movement. This seemed to be going beyond what Dermot had taught him about the importance of lobbying and counting the numbers before you go and that sort of thing. Ken was good at that, he got on the phone and everything when ever anything was coming up and talk to a lot of people. He would generally have people on side beforehand. Probably one of my mistakes is that I tended to keep too much out of that. In the final years I think I would have got more involved in doing a bit of lobbying myself. But Ken was exceptionally good, but I like to think I can understand and work people out, but I still can’t to this day understand the reason for Ken Millers’ great dominance of the movement. He was very dominant. I was the administrative support, I was the administrative structure that gave sound administration to the New South Wales League, but Ken was the force. The three of us together made a good team, Ken, Dermot Ryan and myself. As I said earlier, it is a great pity that Dermot went out of the Director level to the Chief Executive level, where he wasn’t suited. It was political approach to that area, you know he was in an administrative area and he used politics which eventually got him off-side with so many people around the movement. It eventually led to his finishing up as Chief Executive Officer, a matter of great regret from my point of view as to how it happened and I am sorry I didn’t take a greater involvement to make sure it was done more correctly. That is one of my great mistakes.
On the question of Dermot, he was a man who was quite a paradox wasn’t he? He would do anything to get what he believed in, and yet he sort of had ideals.
LR: Yes. He was a paradox, he was. Some of the things he did, I am still ashamed of some of the ways he tried to manipulate people. I frequently said to him, ‘You are a great believer in the end justifies the means,’ and he said, ‘You haven’t got that quotation right, here is the full quotation.’ I can’t now tell it to you, but that is only just a little part of it. But I said, ‘You do this, you manipulate people. Your goals I have got no argument with it is just how you get to the goals. I just don’t agree with it.’ There were times when they were overboard. Particularly at some of the AFCUL meetings where you would see some people cornered, literally cornered, to convince them that they should vote. Even pushed or leant against when they were on balconies many stories above street level. One of my great mistakes that I didn’t stand up and say, ‘That’s not on.’ But I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t. It wasn’t a thing for a movement like the credit union movement, but it is one of the things that eventually led to Dermot’s failure to finish his job.
What about other people. You mentioned Beresford Calverley recently, what was his strength?
LR: I am afraid he didn’t have a great deal of strength. He was always available. He was a single man and he made the credit union his life. I remember saying to him before he failed to win election at a League meeting, a few years before, I said, ‘Berry, the writing is on the wall. You have been dropping in votes each year. Don’t you think it is time to stand down?’ He wouldn’t listen. Eventually he wasn’t re-elected one year and I think that killed him. A good man, did a lot of good work, but not a real leader.
What about people we don’t often mention, like Kevin Bain?
LR: Kevin Bain took over from Ken Miller as President during a very difficult time. Ken and Kevin were long-time working mates, they were both at Motor Transport Department originally. Both were Directors of Motor Transport Credit Union. But Ken was such a strong President and when he stood down and remained on the Executive, he was so keen not to cast a shadow of any sort for Kevin Bain it left a vacuum there. He did the wrong thing, Ken at that stage, he should have either got right out of the Executive or still been a forceful member of the Executive. Kevin was still learning. Kevin again I think was a very nice gentleman and a great philosopher but nowhere near the President that Ken was, in my opinion.
Yet he was very effective over the years at the Transport Credit Union.
LR: Yes. This is very important to understand the difference between a credit union and the League. The credit union was an administrative body. Very easy to be a Manager of a credit union. I am sure a lot of Managers will laugh when I say this. I used to say to a lot of the Field staff at the League. They used to say, ‘We have to know more than the Managers know and you are paying us less.’ I said, ‘Well you get out there and have to deal with the members and take the final responsibility and deal with the Board. You will know why I am paying you less.’ But the next step up was at the League level. Because to be a League Director or a League Manager you were in a completely different arena. It was so much harder because you had a political animal there that you were trying to run, not an administrative one like the credit union. I forget now what the question was that you asked. I have been rattling on.
Talking about the difference between someone who is an official of a credit union as opposed to the League.
LR: That is where the difference came. People succeed at credit union level but it doesn’t necessarily mean they will succeed at League level.
What about the Board members from the country people, like George McCready? Did you have much involvement with him?
LR: No. Quite frankly I wish I had less. This is probably unfair, but George didn’t make a contribution. He didn’t make any contribution.
What about people like John Gormley, he was much involved throughout the years? After you went mainly.
LR: No, he was very involved before that. He was always there and available and a great help on occasions. Not one of the top people in the movement for performance, but a very good worker. Dedicated.
He was very much involved with the Savings Protection Fund Committee when they had trouble later on. Mainly after you, I think.
LR: I have no recollection of it.
Well they eventually wound it up as well. You weren’t involved with Brian Charlton when you were here was you?
LR: Oh yes Brian was a Director of the League for quite some years before. I think he was Chairman of the Common Board at one stage. He was also Chairman of the Savings Protection Fund Committee. Again a good worker. I am probably misjudging these, because I compare them all when you mention these names with the likes of Ken Miller and Dermot Ryan. There is just no comparison I am afraid, they were so outstanding in their abilities and forcefulness and characteristics.
What about Tom Kelly?
LR: Again, a great philosopher. A dedicated credit union man and a hard worker. Idealistic, but frequently not very practical in things. Again, we never agreed. He out-manoeuvred me to get Quest going, which I didn’t resist because I knew I would lose. So there was not good backing a dead horse, but I was completely against it from the start and I was glad when it finished, as I have already mentioned.
What about the co-operative bank issue?
LR: As far as I was concerned that was just not on. It was a political thing at the time that the Government was looking for more banks, the Labor Government was looking for more banks. There was just no need for it. We weren’t ready.
You wanted the central to be it?
LR: Well we were already doing the things in the financial area that we were there for. A co-operative bank was just going to be a separate sort of thing. At some later stage there might have been some need, but at that stage this wasn’t the direction to put our resources into.
I get the feeling they are actually trying to push the central now towards being a bank and to be a co-operative bank for the whole co-operative movement.
LR: Well in my opinion, and this is without any close knowledge at the moment because as I say I have been away from it for eleven years, but my feeling at the moment is that a number of credit unions, far too many credit unions, are becoming too much like banks. I have been saying for some years, even from my early days in the League, the day would come that some of our descendants, but I was thinking probably fifty to a hundred years time from fifteen years ago say, would sit down one day and say, ‘Look I have got a great idea.’ One of them would say, ‘Why don’t we sort of pool our resources and make loans to one another.’ Because any movement that is worthwhile and grows, and continues to grow must continue to change and will eventually cease to look anything like it originally started. So credit unions I knew would eventually cease to be what we originally knew credit unions to be. It is happening too quickly, in my opinion, at the moment. But that is probably just my bad judgement of time.
What should they do now, do you think?
LR: It is probably too late to reverse. I am wondering whether rather than trying to imitate banks by getting into credit cards and ATMs and all these very costly things, whether they may have been better to have remained as a wholesale finance thing. You see originally, when we started here in Australia, there was no competition. Banks made very little personal loans. You just couldn’t get a personal loan from a bank unless you could prove you didn’t need it, as the common saying was at the time. You went to their finance company arm and paid very high interest rates. Now banks are very heavily into the personal loan field and their interest rates are not very much higher, if at all, than credit unions. Probably a bit higher, but some credit unions are charging higher than banks. The credit union movement succeeded. Its goal was to get people to be given reasonable access to reasonable interest rate credit. It succeeded at that but then it has gone beyond it. I am wondering whether if they had stayed out of these costly areas and remained as receiver of deposits and the giver of loans they would have been able to keep their overheads low down and kept the interest rate structure that much lower, because they would have been competitive on that interest rate structure with the banks. But you know this is purely a thought. If I had been in there at the workface myself I probably would have done the same things that have been done. It is probably too late to reverse it, but that is just one thought on it.
So do you think they should start again, or some other credit union should start again?
LR: It is inevitable that someone some day will restart a credit union, because we won’t have credit unions as we understand them. As I understood them.
Now looking at some of the things. Do you think that the credit union and your work for it has taken a toll on our health?
LR: Oh there is no doubt about that. If you asked my wife that she would spend the next half hour giving you a very detailed answer to that.
How about your family life, has it had an adverse affect on that?
LR: Oh no, they haven’t suffered. My wife has. I spent a lot of times away at meetings and late hours working. It was a way of life rather than a job. But that is the way I am built and I think no matter what, and at the time I had good health, I would have worked that hard anyway. I am just that type of person. But I was unfair in that respect to my wife, which I am making up for now that I am retired. I don’t think my family, my children, suffered from it. I still made sure that I gave them plenty of attention and they have grown up OK.
There is an area which we haven’t covered yet, which we should have, that is your involvement with the Chapters and the Chapter Development Committee.
LR: Again, I didn’t have a lot of involvement with the Chapter. I remember the Sydney Chapter was going at the time I became General Manager. They had a Committee and they were sort of working along and I had more important things to do. So they did their things and I did mine and helped out whenever they asked.
So who was behind the Chapter Development Committee? The people who went round setting up Chapters around the place and helping to set up credit unions?
LR: I can’t remember. I don’t think it happened that way. No the credit unions came first and they set up Chapters.
Yes of course. But there was the Sydney Chapter and then there was the South-West, there was a Bankstown one. But then they spread them around the place, or tried to. The Secretary of course was Owen Jones. John Gormley was involved as well and so were a few of the others.
LR: Well pretty certainly, they were the ones involved in the Sydney City Chapter.
But they pass it back to you and say you were one of the leading lights.
LR: Well my memory fails me there, Richard, I am afraid.
It is just that they would say, ‘Oh yes I had something to do, but Les Robinson was the main one.’ That is what they say.
LR: Well it wasn’t Les, it was Peter Symmons or Ron Swanson. As part of an education thing we probably did help set up Chapters. But it wasn’t something that I was involved in to any great extent.
What about Schools?
LR: The education side, yes. That was something I pushed very hard. But again Ron Swanson and Ollie Rozmeta were the ones that did most of that and did it very well.
What about your involvement with the Newport Schools and things like that?
LR: The Schools we did from the League were completely different. The Newport ones were never structured to any particular area of education. They were more an enthusiasm builder type Schools. A bit political too, to get people there to exercise some political power. I am not knocking that, but we just did it differently at the League.
A lot of people have spoken about Room 19.
LR: I didn’t participate too much in the after hours. I was busy enough and tired enough with working rather than get involved in that.
A lot of people reckon that it wasn’t actually the Schools, or it was on top of the Schools themselves, that the after hours discussions, not only just the drinking and such like, amongst credit union people was important.
LR: Very important, extremely important. Even though I am saying that the Schools that the League ran during my time were different, we still made sure that element was there because it was so important. Very important.
Who was that involved Professor Geoffrey Meredith of Armidale University? Probably Dermot and AFCUL. They used to have a seminar along with AFCUL meetings.
LR: It could have been some of our League’s education staff, but again I have got no recollection. I remember his name well and I remember his involvement, but I just can’t remember how it developed.
End Tape 3A: 4229 Words: 1 hour 30 minutes.
24 JULY 1990: ANSWCU68: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO LES ROBINSON
You did have some involvement with Earlwood Credit Union because I believe you were out of it at that time, but you were still involved to some extent, and I believe you were appointed Administrator to Earlwood Credit Union.
LR: That is right. By the time Earlwood was put up for an Administrator I had left the League and I was one of the team on CU Consultants with Geoff Cambridge and Pat Taylor. For a reason that I can’t quite recollect, the Registrar wasn’t keen on appointing Geoff as Administrator of Earlwood and he asked me to take over on the basis though that we would still do it the same was as Geoff would have done it. I said, ‘I will remind you that I was the one making the decisions while Geoff did all the earlier administrations. Although his way was the way a lot of times, it was also my ultimate decision as to which way we went. It goes without saying we will still do it the same way because Geoff had my way of doing things, not just his own.’ Yes I was for some time the Administrator, until decided that CU Consultants wasn’t working out and I recommended to the Registrar, and he was quite happy to accept it as I talked to him in the first place, to accept my resignation as Administrator and appoint Geoff Cambridge. It was not long after that I left the Consultants.
What did you do then?
LR: I went back to my original intention, when I left the League. I am sure many people think that I had all this planned when I resigned from the League to take Geoff and Pat with me from the League. Although just before I left Geoff had mentioned the possibility, I said I wasn’t going to think about it for three months. I then talked to him and he pushed earlier, as I mentioned, to start. I made the mistake of going in without proper preparation and planning, which is quite contrary to the way I normally do things. But I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was extremely tired and I had been through a lot. But it didn’t work out at CU Consultants so I then went back to my original intention of becoming a lone Management Consultant. One of the major jobs I got was doing a retirement planning kit for a number of larger credit unions such as Teachers’, CSG, I can’t rattle them all off now. It became clear to me the tremendous potential that there was opening up in doing that retirement kit, because I was looking into the whole area, primarily the investment area. There was a real area opening up in the investment advisory field. Credit Unions were interested in taking a step beyond the kit that I prepared, the XYZ Retirement Kit, to also provide an advisory service, so I then set up another company, as I had to to get a licence. I got my own investors adviser licence and was providing this interviewing and advisory service for a number of credit unions. This started in late 1983, and unfortunately in early January 1984 I had a stroke which affected not a physical section of the body, but the section of the brain that handles calculations and putting language into order. So I just couldn’t continue. From then on I was substantially retired and eventually I fully retired. It was most unfortunate, because from a personal point of view, well unfortunate in one way that I think I could have made a real success of that business for the benefit of credit unions and myself.
You just didn’t drop it though, did you, it became EDVEST?
LR: Yes, that became EDVEST. They then dropped the XYZ Kit and changed the format a bit, which departed from what I was aiming at. They could be right though and I could have been wrong. I was anxious to treat the credit union member as important and worthy of receiving the full detail, even though he chose not to use it. But that was going to be hard to maintain in an up-to-date position. I also had in mind that it would be a training manual for the staff of credit unions so they would be up-to-date and aware. I don’t think that has been maintained quite to the standards that I had hoped for.
I have covered what I wanted from you. The other thing I was going to ask you was about the Australian Institute of Credit Union Management, were you involved when it was the Australian Institute of Management side, before it became the Australian Institute of Credit Union Management, joined up with CUES?
LR: I was never actively involved, but I actively encouraged it. I felt that it was important for the Managers to form their own sort of society and improve their self-education and improve their professionalism. I actively encouraged it. Ken Miller, I can never understand why, didn’t support it. I think he saw over in America where Managers became too much of a political influence in the movement and he was worried about that. But I was never worried about that, I thought it was more important that they did take a more active role. Also the Managers’ Society in my view was an important part of improving their professionalism.
There is one area that you did mention earlier on, that we didn’t follow, but you said you wanted to come back to and that is Helen McIntyre and her involvement with the credit union at SGE.
LR: Yes, I would particularly like to mention two people that I haven’t covered yet, both of whom I hold in high regard, one is Helen and the other Jack Lange who was the solicitor for the Association for so many years. I was Chairman of the Board of the SGE Credit Union when Helen was first appointed and as I said at a recent get-together to celebrate her twenty-five years of service there, I congratulated myself in the very short speech that I made for one of my better decisions in selecting her. She was given an opportunity and she took a great advantage of it. She had a tremendous ability to take that advantage and she’s done it very well. Also congratulated her on her completion of twenty-five years. But more than anything I am grateful to Helen for the support she gave me at the Credit Union League. A lot of people I am sure thought that she was just supporting me out of loyalty. She would always come back and say, ‘He has invariably done his homework and he has got the right approach and that is why I am supporting him.’ But, nevertheless, whatever the reason she did support me very well. It was a great regret and I think it was most unfortunate that during my term she wasn’t invited earlier in the piece to serve on the League Executive. I think there were one or two years when she would have been a far better person than some of the people who served on the League Executive. She had a tremendous ability to come up with her own approaches to things. She was a very good speaker at Annual Meetings and invariable chose to present the more important things on behalf of the Board at General Meetings. I think it was just the male versus female element that she wasn’t encouraged to be on the Executive much earlier. She was after my time. The other one, Jack Lange, as you move around the movement I guess you will never find a person, or a very rare one, that will ever say anything about Jack Lange. He is nature’s gentleman and a great help during my time at the League. He was a very practical solicitor who gave no bull at all. If you had a question to ask he would give you a very straight, clear answer. I have got a lot of respect for him and a lot of gratitude for the support he gave me during my term there.
Were you involved at that time when they were testing the water so to speak, challenging the Administrative Tribunal over the tax cases and the mounting of the Water Board challenge? Then the transfer to South Australia.
LR: Those things ring bells, but they don’t ring them good enough for me to make much comment.
Do you remember Jack Lange’s attempt to get the credit unions to change the rules on mutuality?
LR: Ah yes. The Sydney Water Board was the test case wasn’t it. Well we were all behind that to try and win on mutuality. But we were ruled out of court, almost laughed out of court. It wasn’t a real case, but a lot of effort went into that.
Whose effort?
LR: Oh a lot of people. Jack was certainly involved, Dermot was certainly involved, I was. My League staff were heavily involved because the test case was all prepared by us.
Did you go down to Adelaide when they supported the one down there? They already had one going. Frank Crean told Dermot that there was already one going in South Australia and they transferred their efforts down there and they all went down. Did you go down amongst that group?
LR: Again, I have no recollection.
Then you probably didn’t go down then.
LR: Well, I certainly would have been involved in the discussions. Whether I went down to actually take part, I don’t know.
Apparently what happened was, the South Australian League’s Annual Meeting they just asked them to come down. So they came down and they gave evidence at the same time, at the court hearing.
LR: I have got some recollection of it, but nothing in detail.
Well that covers another area. Have we got anything else now that I haven’t covered, that I haven’t asked you? I have gone through most of mine I think. Have you got any memorabilia that you are ready to donate?
LR: Do you want me to mention this?
Why not.
LR: I will be happy to donate a Mr Dum Dum Certificate that I received at the Warburton Conference, AFCUL Conference, one year. At that same conference at the entertainment that night, a female singer wanted someone to come up on the stage and there was a song, Mr Wonderful, so from then on I became known as Mr Dum Dum and Mr Wonderful. It was one of the fun things in the early part of the movement. I remember the following year at Wollongong when I had to make a speech sort of handing over the Dum Dum Award to the next recipient, I probably made the only funny speech I have ever made in my life and I had the crowd roaring. But I think Dermot must have lost interest in the Dum Dum Award from then on, because it seemed to very quickly disappear off the scene.
Dermot was a great one for awards. There was one in Sydney City Credit Union called the Butcher of the Year Award. Is there anything else you can think of? Have you any criticisms and suggestions for this project. Anything you criticise that might help us in the future?
LR: No. I am only hoping that it is brought to final fruition. If so it will be no thanks to me of course, I haven’t made any contribution other than sitting down for this interview. I’d like to see it succeed and really brought to its ultimate conclusion.
What to be written up, you mean?
LR: Well I think this is probably the ultimate isn’t it?
Well yes. But there is another side to it. Because if anybody writes it up, say if I wrote it up, that is my view, right. One of the important things is to have it transcribed or at least keep the tapes in that good a condition that students in the future, people in the future, can go back over the same ground and in fact say, ‘Oh he was wrong about that, he is right about that.’ The original material is still there and to save the paper work, that is important as well, so other people in the future can make their judgements. Not just myself or whoever it is that writes it up, their judgement.
LR: Oh yes I agree. I am unclear as to what will happen to it ultimately, but I would not like to see it just left there in limbo without being finished off. I am not well up enough on historical things but I am part of history myself now.
Well we all are. You are not alone in that. As I see it the important thing is there are three strands: one is to keep the tapes in good condition; two is to transcribe them so that all that you have said is permanently distributed, so other people can hear those things; and the third thing is to make sure that the paper work which supports what you have been saying, and what other people have been saying, is available, that it isn’t destroyed, throughout two locations at least. The other thing is to have it written up at least by one person, and maybe later by another. That would be the completion of the project.
LR: I agree with the point that you made that if one man writes it, it is only his view isn’t it, his interpretation of what has been said. But all I am saying is I hope it is not left unfinished and that it is really finished off up to this stage. It has got to be a continuing thing to record the history that is now happening I guess.
Yes, they have got to keep going. Well thank you very much Mr Les Robinson.
LR: Thanks Richard.
End Tape 3B: 2354 Words: 1 hour.