26 SEPTEMBER 1991: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO NEIL McCRYSTAL
You were involved with the League to some extent, but mainly your own credit union. What were the various names of the credit union, first, before I ask you about your personal details?
NMcC: It started off as the Queensland Postal Co-operative Credit Union Limited in 1966. Two years later we became the Australian Postal Credit Union (Queensland). Six years later, in 1974, we became the Australian Post and Telecom Credit Union (Queensland). Then in 1980 the name was changed to Credit Union Australia. When we get to those relevant parts I will tell you reasons why the names were changed, that is part of the history of our credit union.
You would have to be the largest in Australia now for membership, as far as I can see anyway. But I will start at the beginning, where were you born and when?
NMcC: I was born in a little town on the border of New South Wales and Queensland, a place called Genning which is half of the other Queensland side called Wallangarra. I was born in New South Wales in Genning on 18 November 1922.
Did you grow up around there?
NMcC: Spent the first seventeen years of my life on the granite belt, as it is known in Queensland, that is around Wallangarra, Stanthorpe and other places there. Then I moved up into the Central-West of Queensland because I was working in the Post-Master General’s Department. Of course we went from place to place depending on where the jobs were. I went to a place called Claremont, up in Central Queensland over the western side of the Great Dividing Range.
What sort of influence did you get from your parents? What sort of people were they as you remember them?
NMcC: Well my grandparents, who lived nearby at the time that we were at Wallangarra and Genning, they were Finnish migrants back in the 1800s. My grandfather, who was a John Neilson, he was a ship’s carpenter originally and he then migrated to New South Wales and he worked on the railway that was being built in those years between Sydney and the Queensland border to link up with Brisbane on the Queensland side. He was helping build the bridges on that railway line between Glen Innes and Wallangarra. When they got to Wallangarra, there were no redundancy packages in those days, they just said, “No more railway line to build, no more bridges to build John Neilson, you are on your own.” He was married and had a couple of children by then, so they just built a house in this small village of Genning on the New South Wales-Queensland border and he became quite involved in what was going on there. Built houses for the people who were coming to live there, as a carpenter, took up land as an orchardist and a grazier. He did quite well actually and there was quite a lot of influence there from the farming community, from the family side of things. My father worked in the railway and that is how he met my mother because she was working in a boarding house that my grandmother had established to cater for the young single men who were working in the various projects such as railways and those sorts of things around Wallangarra. So yes the family and generally the farming and rural community had quite an influence on me in the early days, because in my retirement I am now living in a rural area in Sandford, outside of Brisbane, so I will leave it at that I think.
Where did you go to school?
NMcC: Went to school in Wallangarra, Stanthorpe, secondary school for a short time, then I joined the Post-Master General’s Department when I was fifteen years of age.
What as?
NMcC: Telegraph-messenger.
Did you have to learn morse?
NMcC: I did yes. Within about nine months I had passed the morse test and qualified as a postal clerk and all those sorts of things. It was really a marvellous system they had. Anybody who was keen enough to get the skills and the knowledge necessary could advance. It was a marvellous arrangement.
What exactly did you do, how did your day go in the first instance? Did you have to take any telegrams? Did you have to send any morse, or did you mainly deliver?
NMcC: No I was a delivery boy in those days, in short pants of course. I had to get long pants because of Stanthorpe’s very severe winter. I used to deliver them. Then as I became more skilled in morse the postal clerk, who was a very obliging fellow, he used to let myself and another telegraph messenger take some of the telegrams, but he would be hovering over us to make sure that they were correct. We could always send more accurately and better than we could actually receive. As time went on, within twelve months, another year, I became a postal clerk and then I was able to do morse code and send and receive telegrams, no problems at all, especially up in Claremont where I went to. Later on, I joined the Telegraph Branch of the PMG’s Department as a telegraphist. I went to a training course for six months.
Where was that?
NMcC: That was in Brisbane. That would have been in 1941, I think.
What was the technology like in those days, were they multiplex machines and such like? Was the Wheatstone still around?
NMcC: The Wheatstone was still around but not used much at that time in the Telegraph Branch. The Murray Multiplexes were all the go, they really were. They were tremendous technology.
Can you explain them? How they affected you when you were working on them?
NMcC: Not really. If you are competent on your punching, as we called it, punching out the tape, you had no problems at all. Most telegraphists were very competent on that. It punched out a five signal tape, five holes in the tape. I remember there were two holes above the little dotted line and three holes below. As long as you were a good puncher, or perforator as it was actually called, there were no problems because the telegrams would go through to the other end, Sydney, Melbourne and those places, fairly accurately. The receiving part of it was very easy you just sat and tore off the telegrams as they came through. If you had a good sender, perforator, on the other end say in Sydney or Melbourne your job was quite a relaxed sort of job because that telegraphist at the other end wouldn’t have made mistakes. The only thing that used to happen occasionally was that we used to get bumps on the line, as they called them, electrical interferences, a lightening strike or something like that, that would garble the message a little. Then you would have to get it sorted out. But the Supervisors used to sort out the difficult things because we used to just keep going and churn out the productivity for the Telegraph Branch.
Now I have interviewed people, as you might have gathered, in New South Wales and Sydney, I interviewed quite a number of Sydney morse codeines for Eternity people actually. I wondered whether there was ever an equivalent of the ‘Room’, as it used to be known in Sydney, in Brisbane?
NMcC: There was.
What was it called here, was it also called the ‘Room’.
NMcC: It was called the CTO, the Central Telegraph Office.
Where was it?
NMcC: On the second floor of the Main Exchange Building, Elizabeth Street, Brisbane, just behind and close by to the GPO, the General Post Office.
Did you ever work there?
NMcC: Yes I worked in the CTO, the ‘Room’ as it was called. There would have been four hundred telegraphists there when I joined. That was where I first met Jack Harvey, who I will mention a little later in the credit union story. We spent many hours there as young fellows after the War, say in the 1946, 1947, thereabouts. We used to gather round and talk about all sorts of political matters of the day, social issues and what ever you had, we would debate it. Jack Harvey was there as a telegraphist and a number of others whose names I will mention later This is really where this network for our credit union sort of began, sort of began there are other influences also of course. Would you like me to go on to that?
That is my next question, when did you first hear about credit unions?
NMcC: Well I mentioned Jack Harvey, as a young telegraphist together with me and many others. By the 1950s all of we young fellows had sort of moved out of the Telegraph Service because we couldn’t see much prospect for advancement there. Jack Harvey went into the postal area of the PMG’s Department and became a Post Master. He was a good Post Master. I had moved out into the clerical and administrative areas into the Personnel Branch of the PMG’s Department in the early 1950s. But we all didn’t lose touch with each other and then in the 1960s I had been involved with a lot of the Unions who had members in the PMG’s Department, because of my job in Personnel, and Jack Harvey was one of those. He was, by the 1960s, the early 1960s, the President of the Post Masters’ Association, very active. He was also associated with the Australian Labor Party in Queensland, in fact at one stage from my memory he was Secretary of one of the suburban branches, I think it might have been Bardon in Brisbane. He was active there and he heard about and read about credit unionism in the early 1960s. He began talking about it with other Union people, certainly within the Post Masters’ Association, they had lots and lots of discussions for and against it, backwards and forwards, “Will we or won’t we have a credit union?” The pros and cons. When they had sorted it out in the Association of Post Masters, Jack then began talking with other people in other Unions with members in the PMG’s Department. He persuaded quite a lot of people in the Union Movement that it was a good thing. He talked to me about it also, because I was in the Personnel area of the PMG’s Department, associated with welfare. The welfare of the staff was very much my concern and I could see some advantages the way Jack explained it all in having a credit union in the PMG’s Department. That would have been maybe 1964, through 1965 certainly, we were all just talking about it, mainly Jack Harvey he was the driving force. He had become fired with this idea and the philosophy of credit unionism. It was early in 1966 we would have had a meeting. I had arranged for the cafeteria at the GPO to be available for a gathering one evening, I think February 1966. It would have been 10 February, in fact I am sure it was 10 February from memory. About fifty or sixty of us gathered there. There had been a Steering Committee on before that.
Where had they met?
NMcC: They had met in various places. They had sorted out whether the name of it ought to be this or that, or something else.
Do you remember the names of people on the Steering Committee?
NMcC: No. I know Jack Harvey was certainly associated with it.
You?
NMcC: No. I came into it towards the end of it and they would have started getting serious in say early 1966. So we met at the cafeteria and it was decided by this loose collection of people who were fired with the idea of credit unionism to establish and found a credit union. The name was put forward and agreed to, it was the Queensland Postal Co-operative Credit Union Limited. Being Postal of course, postal had to figure very prominently in it.
Have you still got the Minutes of that formation meeting?
NMcC: I wouldn’t think so. We didn’t have a Secretary at that time. We just sort of said, “Well let’s have a credit union,” and we all put up our hands and said, “Let’s do it.”
Can you remember who proposed the motion?
NMcC: I couldn’t but I can give you names of people who would have been elected to the first Board of Directors. Perhaps not all of them, but certainly some of them. It was decided that we ought to have a Board of Directors and there ought to be twelve. Why we picked twelve, I am not sure. Jack Harvey had researched it all and he thought we ought to have a fairly good coverage so one of the first that was elected, probably the first who was elected, was Jack Harvey himself. Other people in the postal area of the PMG’s Department who were elected would have been people like Frank Gardiner, or if it wasn’t Frank on the Board it was certainly Ray Gardiner as one of the Directors.
Are they related?
NMcC: Yes they were, they were in the same family. There was another third Gardiner who came on the Board later, a Graham Gardiner, he was active in the Post Masters’ Association. I can remember him telling me that two Gardiners had been put forward. I am pretty sure that Frank became the Secretary-Treasurer that night and Ray was elected to the Board. I think that is the way it went. I can remember Graham saying to me, “Well there were two Gardiners associated with the Board and I thought there had better not be a third one. They might have thought it was just a little bit biased towards the Gardiners.” Graham came on later as a Director. Other people who would have been elected that night would have been Frank Davison, who was the Secretary of the Queensland Postal Institute at the time. It was thought that it would be useful to have him on it because he had contacts with a lot of people throughout the PMG’s Department through the Institute, so he was elected. Then there were people elected from the Unions. Jack of course was from Post Masters’ Association. Jim Smith was either Post Masters’ Association or a senior postal clerk in the Third Division Postal Clerks and Telegraphists Union, he was elected. There were other people from the Third Division Postal Clerks and Telegraphists Union such as Geoff Storey, Pat Cain, Laurie Macnamara, Len Devoss. All of those people would have been people that Jack and I would have been talking with in the 1940s, it was sort of a network of young people.
Who was Secretary and Treasurer at that first meeting?
NMcC: I am pretty sure it was Frank Gardiner who was Secretary/Treasurer elected that night. Other people elected to the Board from Unions would have been Reg Kennedy from the Amalgamated Postal Workers’ Union. I think at the time he was Assistant Secretary and it was very desirable that the APWU be involved because they had members right throughout the PMG’s Department. Frank Walters was the Secretary of the Queensland Branch of that Union at the time and he was National President. Frank was a very influential and powerful man in the Union Movement in Queensland and a good man to have associated with this new and budding credit union, so Reg Kennedy was elected. Johnny James, who was also with the APWU, I think he was Vice-President of that Union at that time, another man who it was very desirable to have on the Board because he had contacts in the Lines side of the PMG’s Department.
Do you remember if they established a Supervisory Committee, or an internal audit at the first?
NMcC: Well we had a Supervisory Committee, but I am not sure whether we had it that night in February, but we certainly got one a little bit later on when we started to have loans made. I know Graham Gardiner was one of the Supervisory Committee at the time. There are one or two others that I should mention, elected to the Board, a fellow by the name of Toby Grayson, he was the President of the Line Foremans” Association at the time, again from a Union area and very desirable to have him associated with the credit union. So the credit union, as we had it in the early stages, was really born out of the industrial unions who had members in the PMG’s Department. So it was very well based. I was elected to the Board as one of the twelve at that time. I was then associated with management in the Personnel area, as I said earlier, involved in welfare. I had quite a bit of background knowledge as to how we could help people with loans and those sorts of things. That is one of the reasons why I was elected to the Board.
Who did you have on the financial side? Did you have anybody from the Pay Office at all? Did you get payroll deductions from the start?
NMcC: No, we got those later on. But you see we were very well situated being in the PMG’s Department because every post office throughout Queensland, and throughout Australia for that matter, had an agency at the Commonwealth Bank. So we had the Commonwealth Bank as our bankers right from the beginning and with the documents which we prepared later on for deposits and repayments of loans, they could be repaid at every post office. So therefore we needed to have postal clerk people, their Union involved, and Post Masters’ Union involved, because that was where the financial side, all our income, came through. We had a wonderful network. It was really something that was sort of made to order and we made use of the facilities available. We paid for them of course. We had to pay for the use of the Commonwealth Bank facilities, just the same as everybody else, but the network was there. So we really had no problems. Then when we had loans to be repaid, having people who were associated with the credit union on the Board from the various Union areas, we were always able to get somebody locally to go and talk to somebody if they were falling behind in their loan repayments and find out what sort of problems they were having at home, so maybe they could be helped with their problems so they could continue repaying their loan repayments and that sort of thing.
I suppose you would have a fairly small telephone bill too?
NMcC: Well we used to have a telephone bill. I wouldn’t say that it was very small. Perhaps it might have been a little bit smaller than it otherwise should have been. I know that the people out in the country areas, particularly in the engineering side, they used to have to test a lot of lines, telephone lines and that, and perhaps they might have mentioned one or two things, but that would have been in the line of duty anyhow. It was always above board and the credit union although it made use of the facilities, we always accepted our responsibilities as a credit union because we didn’t want to damage our relationships with the management of the PMG’s Department. They were very good relations really. I brought along my receipt for my membership fee that I paid that night. That is how I knew it was the 10 February, we paid five pounds to buy shares in the credit union and we paid five shillings, as it was in those days, as a joining fee, just to help the paper costs and that sort of thing. There was Frank Gardiner’s signature, Frank being the Honorary Secretary that we elected that night. Even though we got started then, it wasn’t until May, I think, of that year before we could make the first loan. We had to get money in of course. It was a real red letter day, I remember, when we had the first Board meeting that could approve of loans. From memory there were seven loans approved in May of that year. The amount of money would have been about one thousand five hundred pounds total. We had a upper limit on the amount of money that people could borrow because we were just limping along at that stage.
What was that limit, can you remember?
NMcC: I think it would be either two hundred pounds or two hundred and fifty pounds limit. But it grew pretty rapidly after we got decimal currency and the money started to roll in. By the time I resigned from it in 1975, which was about nine or ten years later, we were up to 11,000 members, even though we started off with sixty members on that night of 10 February with assets nil of course. By 1975, when I left, we had 11,000 members on the rolls and assets of $9 million by then. The credit union owned three properties, one at Noosa right in Hastings Street, the main street of Noosa. It was an apartment building where people could rent flats by the sea. It was a wonderful location, valuable property. By that time we also owned 531 Anne Street, which the credit union had bought, and that was the headquarters by then. There was one other property, but I have just forgotten where it was located. Those properties would have been worth about $750,000.
They were your investments were they?
NMcC: Yes to back up the loans that were out. In those days we used to think that property was worth having as a sort of a back-up.
Then it was, wasn’t it?
NMcC: It really was. Now that is how it grew. It grew rapidly. But those early days were wonderful days and we were sort of walking a very thin line.
When did you get payroll deductions and how did you go about it?
NMcC: Well payroll deductions I couldn’t tell you exactly when they started, but it would have been some time after 1966 when this was the way to go. Of course that really helped us much more, having payroll deductions.
It was Commonwealth payroll deductions, they went through together some time? It was difficult getting payroll deductions from the Commonwealth I believe.
NMcC: Well it was a fair while before they came through because all that was new. But when it started to flow through PMG’s Department would have certainly been one of the earliest ones to get payroll deductions. We had a very helpful management in the PMG’s Department and if there was anything that would help the credit union movement within the Department they were prepared to do whatever they could to assist. They could see the value to the staff. It really was valuable because I can remember in the very early days how it was financially difficult for people if they had some sort of tragedy in the family. I can remember way back, it would have been in the 1940s, early 1950s, when a family had fallen on hard times . We used to have a relief fund within the PMG’s Department which was able to make some sort of payment to people who through natural disaster or other hardship were financially embarrassed. It wasn’t a great deal of money because it was a contribution that staff used to put into this fund and the Unions were greatly involved in that. I as the person in the Personnel Department at that time, I was involved in that. I knew the hardship that people had financially. I can remember this one case I started to tell you about. In order to get money to buy groceries this woman, whose husband had died, had to sell the family cow. Now that is the sort of difficulty that people used to have. So the management of the PMG’s Department knew how the credit union, with its financial arrangements of loans and that sort of thing, could help their staff. That is one of the reasons why we didn’t have any trouble getting payroll deductions.
What I was trying to get at, there was some negotiations done on a national basis, was there anybody from Queensland that you knew of involved?
NMcC: Not that I knew of, no. Jack Harvey certainly would have been advocating it in the right places in the PMG’s Department because he knew all the right people.
Jack Harvey I note was on AFCUL for some time.
NMcC: Jack was the first Chairperson of the Queensland Postal Co-operative Credit Union and he was Chairperson for three years, thereabouts. We had grown to the stage where we needed a full-time Manager and Jack was appointed as Manager. I then became the Chairperson of the credit union at that time, in 1968. That was when we had our first name change, round about the time that Jack became the first Manager. He was a good Manager, having had a background in managing post offices in the PMG’s Department. He knew lots and lots of people and he was able to move the credit union along very rapidly. Could I tell you the reason why we changed the name at that point. In 1968, it would have been, the PMG’s Department adopted as its trading name, the Australian Post Office. Of course, we being the Postal Credit Union, we thought about the name Australian Postal Credit Union. We thought that was a pretty good name, changing it in line with the change that had occurred in the PMG’s Department. So that was what we became in 1968. Then later on the ALP Government in the Federal area, the Whitlam Government, had asked a Queensland businessman, a prominent man by the name of Jim Kennedy, to investigate the PMG’s Department to see whether it might be better organised if it were separated into a couple of Commissions. Around about 1974, Jim Kennedy’s report came out and he was recommending that it be separated into an Australian Postal Commission.
End Tape 1A: 4423 Words: 1 hour 25 minutes
You were talking about the name changes and you were on to the second name change.
NMcC: That really was the time of 1974 when Jim Kennedy’s report came out. We knew that he had recommended that there be two Commissions, one the Australian Postal Commission and the other Australian Telecommunications Commission. So moving with the times we thought we needed to keep in with all the people working in both Commissions, which we thought the Government would do eventually, which they did in 1975 eventually, so we changed the name to the Australian Post and Telecom Credit Union (Queensland) in 1974. That was the third name we had. Of course we had logos for each of those, and I will show you some logos if you are interested. Then in 1980 the credit union became Credit Union Australia. So that is the name it is today.
How did you hit on that, Credit Union Australia? It is a bit ambitious isn’t it?
NMcC: Well by that time it had grown a lot broader than the two Commissions. There had been other credit unions that were amalgamated with the Australian Post and Telecom Credit Union. The membership had really broadened much wider than the old PMG’s Department. Yes I guess it was ambitious, but Jack Harvey thought big, as you can see by the growth of the credit union, and he though Credit Union Australia was a good one. That was the sort of name titles that were being given in industry in Australia round about that time. So the name changes really meshed in with the history of the PMG’s Department. Why I am mentioning that, the credit union was born out of the industrial unions mainly and the employs of the PMG’s Department. Then our history sort of paralleled the PMG’s Department until it became the two Commissions. Then it broadened further out than that.
I see that photograph there. Ron Johnson was one of the early members of the Board. The reason that he was on it was that he was in the Engineering Division of the old PMG’s Department, again very desirable to have somebody from there. Horrie Bell came on some time later. I can see others there. Toby Grayson is still there, he was one of the originals. Pat Neehouse had come on a little bit later. She came out of the Phonogram Operators and Telephonists Association, there was a big staff in those days of those ladies and it was desirable to have somebody representing them. She was the only lady who was on the Board. It is very interesting seeing that photo, where did you get that one?
Well that is from one of your Annual Reports and it came out of Berry Calverley’s papers. Do you remember Berry?
NMcC: Yes we had associations with him, and you would have all that background I guess.
From New South Wales, but if you have got any reminiscences.
NMcC: Well I have got more reminiscences I think of Stan Arneil. Stan was a great advocate for credit unions and he visited I think more often.
Was that when he was Manager of CUNA Mutual-CUMIS in Australia?
NMcC: Yes, he was. He was also involved in the Retail Trade Union down in New South Wales, I think it was later called the Shop Distributive and Allied. He was a very strong supporter, he used to come up and he gave us a lot of help in the early days. See we had to draw on the knowledge and information from other sources. I remember Merv Callaghan was also very helpful in the early days, because the Police Credit Union had started before ours. The Technicians Credit Union had started before ours. We drew on the knowledge that they had accumulated, but particularly Stan Arneil.
What about Godfrey Stephens, did he come over to you at all?
NMcC: Well we knew of Godfrey and we worked with Godfrey in the early days because his credit union had started well before ours also. Again we were drawing on his knowledge and information also. There was Brian Fitzgerald I think from Rockhampton. That was a very strong credit union, that was a church-based one as I remember and it was a very strong credit union with strong membership links.
Had quite a lot of problems at one stage.
NMcC: Well what credit union didn’t have teething problems.
What sort of problems did you have in your credit union, the teething problems?
NMcC: Well we never ever had problems that couldn’t have been dealt with, and they were dealt with effectively. Yes we had problems but we overcame them and everything went on developing just as a credit union ought to develop.
Were you a member of the League from the start or not?
NMcC: No not right from the start. I know we did come into the League later on. I think it was through the League that I became involved in 1973, 1974, with the Queensland Credit Union Employers’ Association. We never thought we would have an Employers’ Association in the credit union movement, but, and I am just guessing now, one of the reasons why it was born was that the Federated Clerks’ Union wanted to get an award for employees in the growing industry of the credit union by that time. In order to have an award made through the courts there had to be an Employers’ Association who could be part of the deal. So I think we quickly put it together and I think it was through the League, but you can check that of course, this Employers’ Association. Although we were called that in name, we were very much leaning towards the employees ourselves of course. The first award I remember was made in 1973 with the FCU and I was Chairman. I don’t know why they made me Chairman of that Association, maybe it was because of our credit union involvement and because I was involved in management in the PMG’s Department, as it still was, they didn’t become Commissions until 1975. I remember in the following year, 1974, believe it or not there was a dispute with the Australian Bank Officers’ Association. I can’t recall what the dispute was about, but there was a dispute that had to go before, of all things, the Industrial Relations, I think it was called the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, in the Commonwealth area. The Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. I remember the Association, probably through the League or it might have been our credit union, sent me off to Melbourne to represent the Employers’ Association at that dispute. I remember that it was satisfactorily resolved. Can’t even remember what the dispute was about. That was the way we used to deal with it, fairly amicably.
This Credit Union Employers’ Association, was that started in Queensland or was it started in New South Wales or one of the other States? It was in New South Wales, I know that.
NMcC: Was it. I know we called ours the Queensland Credit Union Employers’ Association, so maybe it was sort of a sister organisation to the New South Wales one, I have forgotten though.
You can’t really document where it started, where in the Union Movement it started? I suppose it did start in the Union Movement.
NMcC: My guess would be that it started through the League. The League used to deal with problems that affected all the credit unions and that problem affected not only our credit union, but all credit unions in Queensland. I have got a card out here, re AFCUL. I have got a terribly suspicious mind you see and I have a feeling that I smell somebody political at the back of this particular thing and I was wondering who and how. Now Jack Harvey was involved with AFCUL wasn’t he?
Yes I notice he was in 1974 he was on the AFCUL delegation from Queensland. He was only there for the one year, isn’t that interesting.
NMcC: That was the Australian Federation of Credit Union Leagues wasn’t it? Well the Credit Union League certainly would have been involved in the Employers’ Association.
Dermot Ryan was the Chief Executive Officer at that time, although he was just about to resign due to ill-health.
NMcC: I really haven’t got any useful information I could give you there.
He was much involved with the Union Movement you see, and he was always lobbying in the background there, the taxation case and so on, so I was wondering if he was anything to do with it? Never saw anything about it?
NMcC: No that didn’t surface. Jack Harvey may know something of that. It didn’t reach the Board level of our credit union at that time.
Is Jack Harvey contactable?
NMcC: Andrew McCutchin has been trying to get in touch with him, but I don’t think he has been successful to date.
Does anybody know where he is?
NMcC: He lives at Bribie Island. If anybody could talk to him from the historical side he could certainly give some wonderful background information. He really was the prime mover of it all and we owe a great deal to Jack Harvey’s early days. He really drove it in the early days and he drove it well. I left in 1975 because we became two Commissions in PMG’s Department and I was fortunate enough to become the Manager of the Personnel Department in Australia Post. We had a very big job in getting all the Commission set up in Queensland, the new trading arrangements and personnel arrangements and those sorts of things. I just became too busy in the work area to be able to devote time to credit union or any other of those extra-curricular activities. We used to do all of those things in our own time and voluntarily.
There wasn’t one of those gigantic mail exchanges up here as well was there?
NMcC: No. I visited on two or three occasions the credit union that was covering the Redfern Mail Exchange in Sydney. Believe it or not, the credit union people for that Mail Exchange down there they were wonderful people. So I think they were much maligned in that Redfern Mail Exchange.
I have been recording on that line, the personal angle on that, the way they were forced into working shift work in the one area, and then they were forced back out again into the other area.
NMcC: Have you talked to anybody about the credit union that was formed there? That was a very useful credit union. I had some discussions with some of those people years and years ago and I found them to be wonderful people.
They were wonderful people but it was the monolithic thing that was destructive of people’s initiative and feelings.
NMcC: Yes, in hindsight it wasn’t a very good idea to have a great central mail exchange like that, was it? Although we had a central mail exchange here in Queensland for many, many years and we didn’t have the same sort of problems. I must mention Frank Walters though, he was the Queensland Secretary of the Amalgamated Postal Workers’ Union, it became later on the Australian Postal and Telecom Union when the two Commissions came into being. Now Frank Walters not only was he the Queensland Secretary for many years, but he was a very influential Unionist in the political arena in Queensland. He was also the National President of the APWU for many years. Now he was a great supporter of the Australian Postal Co-operative Credit Union in the early days and right throughout while he was the Union boss in Queensland. I can remember when I was Chairman, Frank used to delight in telephoning me round about October or November, certainly before Christmas, he would ring up from the office in Brisbane in the Trades Hall and he would say, “Hey Neil, how do you think the credit union would be able to use a certain sum of money of Union funds that we have available that we normally invest in various places, in the bank and other places. They are Union funds and they need to have a secure place, but they need to do some good. How would you like it if we deposited say $5,000 or $10,000 in the credit union?” I said, “Frank you would be like Santa Claus to so many members of the credit union, because they would be able to get loans.” We used to sort of run out of money for loan money in the early days. Now that was the sort of thing that Frank Walters did to help and assist. This happened almost every year in the early years of the credit union. He would always come to light with investing some of the Union funds that had been accumulated and they needed a safe depository and he knew the credit union was in good hands because he had some of his own members in there, you see. But not only that, Frank used to arrange for the Field Officers, people whose name are legend like Eric Burke and Doc Spence, they used to be the Field Officers for the Amalgamated Postal Workers’ Union. They would go around Queensland to all the work places and one of the things that they used to talk to their Union members about was the credit union, as well as their own Union matters. They used to recruit new members and they used to support the idea of the credit union in those early years and it all helped to build it up and make it a very strong credit union. That is the reason why the base of the credit union was built up, by the activities of those sorts of people and the support that that credit union received from the Unions and Associations, the officials as well as the people on the job. So it was really as I said earlier, born out of the Union Movement in the PMG’s Department. I believe that is where it drew its strength from, because those people, as you probably realise being an historian, were in business to help people. That is what a credit union is in business for, to help people.
Did you have any field staff yourself at the credit union?
NMcC: Later on we did. Not in the early days. The field staff used to be those members who were associated with the Unions in the various centres. Later on yes we did get Field Officers who went round.
What about volunteer representatives in the areas, did you have those or not?
NMcC: Yes we used to have volunteers who were representatives in almost every work centre.
What was the procedure if somebody in an outlying area wanted to get a loan?
NMcC: They would have to put in their application. There was always an application form to be completed which came into the office of the credit union. It was always dealt with in the Head Office. Of course if they wanted to deposit money it was just in the agency of the Commonwealth Bank, which was in the post office. So the facilities were very good.
The Credit Committee, how often did that meet?
NMcC: Well it certainly was once monthly at the very least. I think we met more often than that. I can remember in the early days, when we had very little money and we used to loan out as much as we could, we had an office in the Technicians Credit Union down Edward Street in Brisbane. They had a building, they had bought a building down there and they had given us the loan of an office for which we paid a sort of nominal rent. I can remember the Supervisory Committee used to meet and we would go through the loan cards. The loan cards, believe it or not, used to be in cardboard boxes. They would be Rinso boxes or Lux boxes, or whatever type of cardboard box we could put these cards in that they fitted. Of course it has grown from that. We would go through these laboriously, one after the other, just checking that the loan repayments were being made. Anybody who was behind a little we used to take it to the Board meeting and decide what action ought to be taken. There was always somebody locally who was able to go and talk to the people who were falling behind. I mention that to indicate that although we are in the Credit Union Australia, and long before it became that, before it became computerised and all that and it is highly computerised now, we started off in that very humble manual fashion and it grew from that. Would you like to see some of the logos that we had. I will show you later on perhaps.
We can probably get them photocopied later on. There was another credit union which you were sort of in competition with, wasn’t there?
NMcC: Well I guess that would be the Technicians’ Credit Union. I guess it was friendly competition from the Board’s point of view.
Who was the Chairman down there?
NMcC: I think Len Hedgers was the Chairman then. Board to Board relationships were always very good. There really wasn’t much competition, because the Technicians’ Credit Union covered a particular designation within the PMG’s Department, all the technicians. They were a large body of people and they were very closely-knit. They served and serviced their own people, the technicians and people in that area. We really, in the Queensland Postal Credit Union the only people we would be servicing in the engineering area, and the technicians were in the engineering area, we were servicing people like linesmen, Line Foremen and those sorts of people. Engineers who were in the Professional Officers’ Association, if I remember correctly, at the time. So we really weren’t in fierce competition. I think the Managers used to have a little to say to each other on occasions.
Who were they?
NMcC: Jim Green and Jack Harvey. That was always amicable and in a friendly manner and things were always settled.
What about your relations with the League versus the Postal Techs’ relations with the League?
NMcC: Well our relationships, as I remember, were always fairly good with the League. Technicians’, I couldn’t speak on that at all.
Well they eventually split off. Len Hedger was on the League Board but then he started the Federation. I don’t know what the dispute was about, do you?
NMcC: No, I don’t either. Jack Harvey could probably speak about that, if you could catch up with Jack.
What about your dealings with the League? Did your credit union join during your period?
NMcC: Yes we were certainly on the League during my period on the Board.
Were you in the Savings Protection Fund?
NMcC: Yes we would have been. That was through CUMIS.
No that is Loan Protection Insurance. The Savings Protection Fund was a reserve fund.
NMcC: I think we were in that one too. I didn’t have a lot to do with that one. Again Jack Harvey could tell you more about that.
What about the CUNA Mutual-CUMIS, did you insure with them? Were you involved in the split at all over that?
NMcC: No. We certainly were with CUMIS for many, many years. I am not sure what the arrangement is now, because I left in 1975 and I haven’t kept up with things since then. It has grown tremendously in the 1980s, incidentally.
So during your time there, from your experiences there in the areas that you were involved with, for instance was there a Publicity Committee? Did you get involved in putting out a newsletter or anything like that?
NMcC: Well our publicity was mainly through the work places. See we had our network there. Through the APWU Field Officers who went round used to do a lot of it. Other people who used to do a lot of publicity were the Welfare Officers who used to work in my area of the PMG’s Department. That was part of Welfare you see, helping people financially. But certainly we did get a newsletter later on that we put out.
What about Credit Union Schools or the Chapter, were you involved in that?
NMcC: We used to go to Credit Union Schools, I guess you could call them that. We used to have get togethers in various places. I can remember we used to go to Toowoomba and I think we were in Rockhampton on one occasion.
Do you remember Dermot Ryan speaking at Toowoomba?
NMcC: The name kind of rings a bell, but I can’t really recall it.
He gave a famous report there.
NMcC: I can’t really remember that. Maybe I wasn’t there on that occasion.
I believe he got up and said, “I had an interview with John Gorton about the matters that are in dispute between us and the Government and all I got was a box of matches I nicked off his desk.”
NMcC: I would have remembered that if I had heard it. I wasn’t there on that occasion. We were all learning in those early years, the 1960s and early 1970s, we were all learning. I guess we would have made mistakes, but we didn’t make any fatal mistakes fortunately.
What about the Chapter in Brisbane, the Charles C Compton Chapter, were you in that?
NMcC: No. I can’t give any information on that.
I am just doing a quick round-up of subjects which might be pertinent to the League, since we are here in the League and under their project. So as far as your credit union is concerned is there anything else that we haven’t dealt with that we might deal with?
NMcC: Not in the early days. I think I have canvassed most of the things in the early days of it. I would urge, if you could talk with Andrew McCutchin, even Bob Briskey, who is now the Chairman of the Board. Bob Briskey, incidentally, became the Queensland Secretary of the Amalgamated Postal Workers’ Union, which later became the Australian Postal and Telecom Union. He has been on the Board for quite a number of years. He might be worth talking to also, to give you some more of the recent history, when it began to spread into other areas. The growth has been absolutely phenomenal in the 1980s. The previous years were really the foundation and the consolidation years, but after I left it just blossomed and grew, maybe because I left.
Were you conservative?
NMcC: I don’t think so. No. As things unfolded and things changed it could be seen that you had to grow. If you didn’t grow you sort of were left behind. I think the growth has been good and it is certainly one of the biggest, if not the biggest, credit union in Australia today. There are 115,000 members as far as I know and that is a fairly good membership isn’t it. When you think of sixty, the original number in February 1966, what’s that twenty-five years.
Yes it is very quick. Were you involved in central banking at all?
NMcC: No.
I am thinking of a number of other things where you might have been involved. Can you think of anything else you were involved in?
NMcC: I have thought back over the things since I was invited to speak with you and I think I have given all the things that I was involved in, as accurately as I can recall. More or less the background to these things. If you look at the Minutes of the Board Meetings and that you wouldn’t get the sort of things that I have been able to tell you, about how the credit union came into being. All the network of discussions that Jack Harvey would have had say in 1964 and 1965, that sort of thing. I don’t think I can help you any more Richard.
You didn’t go to any AFCUL meetings and conventions or overseas World Council?
NMcC: No. Too busy at work.
Did you go to the World Council in Sydney when it was there?
NMcC: No. I was a very small fish really.
Little fishes grow, if you look at it that way, into big credit unions.
NMcC: True, but that has happened since I have left. They have done well, exceedingly well.
In that case shall I ask you is there anything we should cover now that we haven’t, otherwise I will wind-up the interview?
NMcC: I think we have sucked the lemon dry, as we used to say. Thank you.
Thank you, very much Mr Neil McCrystal.
End Tape 1B: 4171 Words: 1 hour 15 minutes