25 MARCH 1992: VCCA52: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO ROGER BELL
I will ask you Mr Bell, where you born and when?
RB: I was born in Melbourne, 3 April 1941.
What part of Melbourne?
RB: Essendon.
Did you grow up round there?
RB: Yes I grew up in Essendon where I lived for the first twenty years and then I was married and I moved to the beachside suburb of Aspendale, where I currently reside.
What sort of influence do you think you got from your parents?
RB: Well a great deal. I had a very difficult father, who had a drinking problem all his life, but I had a very dedicated and hard-working mother who kept us all on the straight and narrow and ensured that we were educated and put into good jobs. My mother is still alive today.
Did she give you any sort of religious or political influence?
RB: Both my parents were Protestants and belonged to the Church of England and we did attend church for the fifteen or so years that we were at home.
But that wasn’t a particular influence?
RB: No.
So what do you think the main influence was during your young life?
RB: I think the principles that my mother and father ensured that we followed were looking after each other, looking after other people, looking after people less fortunate than ourselves and in fact endeavouring to be good citizens.
Where did you go to school?
RB: I was educated at Essendon High School and I only went to what was at that time the Intermediate Certificate, so I was in the workforce at fourteen years of age.
Did you like or dislike school? Anything particularly that you were good at?
RB: I did like school. It was just that my parents didn’t have any money for me to continue. I won a scholarship to continue to go through to Leaving and matriculation, but unfortunately it was better to leave and get a job.
So what job did you get?
RB: I started with the Bank of New South Wales just as a junior at the age of fourteen in 1956.
You stayed there?
RB: I stayed with the bank for eight years and I was very fortunate in that I had served the bank in New Guinea and in a second round of Island service in Fiji. I stayed with the bank for eight years and I resigned from the bank for the reasons that I believe that the powers that be were not looking after people. People without money were treated as second-class citizens. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer.
Where did you first hear about credit unions?
RB: I first heard about credit unions when I joined the Ansett Airlines of Australia organisation and I was working side by side with a person called Peter Riley. Peter Riley and Pat Riley, his wife, were the founders of the Burwood Community Credit Union which started off in Saint Scholasticers, as a parish credit union.
You didn’t see anything of them up in Papua-New Guinea or in Fiji?
RB: No, none at all.
When were you out there?
RB: I was in New Guinea in 1959 to 1961. The financial co-operatives weren’t started. There were co-operatives, but not financial co-operatives.
I interviewed David Loring, who went up there starting credit unions for the Reserve Bank.
RB: That’s right, David Loring from New South Wales Teachers’. Yes. I am currently serving on a committee with David Loring, the National Advertising Committee. I have just been locked up with him for two days and twenty others at a hotel in Coogee Beach.
So when did you join the credit union first, or did you go to work for it?
RB: No. I did join the credit union and what I did I used to work for them. I used to work for the Burwood District Credit Union every Saturday morning voluntarily. I used to just help the people with their arrangements with their finances, with their chequeing and bill paying services. That is how I was introduced to understanding about credit unions.
So you have only been with the one credit union all the time?
RB: Well no, that was the Burwood Credit Union. The late Sir Reginald Ansett wanted a credit union formed for the Ansett group, so I ended up being foundation member number one, Director number one and so I started off the Ansett Credit Union, the Outlook Credit Union, and I am still there today.
Now Burwood is a separate credit union, it didn’t amalgamate did it?
RB: No Burwood is a separate credit union in the community that still stands and runs beautifully today.
Do you still have anything to do with Burwood?
RB: Yes. I still have an account at the Burwood Credit Union.
So when you first started working at the credit union there, was the Victorian Co-operative Credit Association started?
RB: Yes the VCCA was started. Burwood belonged to the VCCA. I think Outlook Credit Union started in 1972, which is twenty years this year, and we had visitations from the VCCA to help us get our credit union started.
Now can you remember who came to your foundation meeting?
RB: Yes I can. There was Don Harris and Leon Magree.
They were the Field Officers?
RB: They were the people that came along and told us how to get started and to get registered and to start.
Did you have enough people to run the credit union on volunteer basis at first? Or was it started straight off as a professional unit?
RB: It was just me. I was the Cost Accountant of Ansett Airlines of Australia and Sir Reginald Ansett gave me a doorway to operate out of. I had a three-legged table and the other leg was made of telephone books that kept the table straight. I used to start there at eight o’clock in the morning, at nine o’clock I would go to my job. Lunch time I would take my sandwiches down there to eat at this table and I would stay there for an hour. I would stay for half-an-hour at the end of the day and take the money home in a little petty cash tin. I used to post the accounts manually myself on the weekends. I did that for twelve months before we appointed a Manager.
Who was the Manager?
RB: Our first Manager was a fellow called John Owen. He was a person from the UK and he was our first Manager. He was appointed twelve months after we started.
You speak as if you knew Sir Reginald Ansett reasonably well, I mean in the firm.
RB: Well I have been associated with Ansett, our credit union, for twenty-eight years and I was very fortunate I knew the late Sir Reginald Ansett very well. I know Lady Ansett today. I know their children and they are members of our credit union.
How would he learn about credit unions?
RB: Well I believe being such a financial wizard and an engineer and an entrepreneur, the star of the airline industry in Australia, I believe with all his connections he would know that other business had in-house type of credit union facilities that helped the employees of their organisations.
Did you see anything of people like Stan Arneil, or any of the other people that were going around then trying to start industrial credit unions all over Australia?
RB: No, I didn’t, no.
I just wondered if whether he ever came round?
RB: No not at all.
Do you know if there were any approaches by the Registrar in Victoria to try and get industrial credit unions started?
RB: Yes, I believe there may have been. I know we needed their help. We had to go to those people to ensure that we were doing everything on a regulatory basis.
Did you know Warren Youngworth at all?
RB: Yes, knew Warren Youngworth very well. Warren was invited every year to our Annual General Meetings as the Registrar. Yes I knew him very well.
Now when did you become involved with the management of the credit union of Outlook?
RB: I have been here fifteen years today, so I must have taken over in 1977. I was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the credit union at the time and we had a disagreement with our second Manager. The first Manager resigned over a disagreement with the Board. We appointed another Manager and he lasted I think about two years and we came to grief there. So it ended up that although I didn’t want the job, but I was offered the job about six or seven times and in the end I was told to take the job and get it organised and let’s get moving. I was appointed in 1977 and I was the General Manager and two years ago I was appointed the Managing Director of the organisation.
That is somewhat unusual isn’t it among credit unions to have an appointment of Managing Director?
RB: I believe that there are only two of us in the industry nationally. However, it is not uncommon in the United States where the Chief Executive is also on the Board of Directors, but they haven’t given it that title. I believe it is a right decision to make especially when, well in my position I am the Foundation Director, I started it. If I am not worth a place on the Board of Directors I really don’t think I should have my job.
Well the rules in New South Wales are that you can have two. But I don’t know about Victoria?
RB: Correct for New South Wales but in Victoria we can have one.
So there you are, you are within the rules anyway. So you didn’t have to have them changed.
RB: No.
The Police in New South Wales was one that had a Manager on the Board for years. There have been a few other ones as well, but I can’t remember them. But not that many.
RB: No, not at all.
Well of course the Police Credit Union up there had the one man who although he wasn’t called Managing Director, he was.
RB: Well I personally believe there should be more Managing Directors. Whilst I am a very co-operative person and I am very philosophical, I believe that we are getting an imbalance of too many volunteer Directors and not enough professional full-time staff that should be there. In my opinion a professionally qualified Manager should have a position on that Board.
So how did you come to stand for the Board of the VCCA?
RB: I was nominated obviously by a couple of members or other credit unions and I have always been involved. I have always been involved in marketing. I am always ready to help, I will help with this and I will help with that. I have always been seen to be participatory and so I just ran an election and was elected. I have been there for a long time.
I notice that was a time when there were a lot of Directors replaced.
RB: We were having very difficult times at that time. There were more Association staff and a couple of Board members that also in particular trod on their own credit unions at that time. It was a difficult time. I think it was the time when it was Jubilee Lake time wasn’t it? I was also a Director on the Board of Jubilee Lake as well. I was put on that Board to get them out of the water. They were very tough times and we were losing money. That was a recession year too, I am sure, I think we were in a terrible recession. So they were hard times for everybody.
Were you on any other committees before you were on the Board?
RB: Well I probably was. I think I have been on just about everything that there is. None come to mind. There are always working committees of some sort, or marketing committees, Managers’ forums. We used to have all these weekends away down The Lawn and all these sort of conferences and that type of thing.
Did you go to any of the Warburton Schools?
RB: Yes I used to be there with bells on every year. I used to love them. They were the days I think when we used to receive visitations from various Canadian or US credit union executives. We were all pretty new at the game so it was a very big learning curve for all of us.
We have got quite a few photographs there of some of the different years when the people came. I think Father Ganey one year. I don’t know whether you ever met him, did you?
RB: Yes I met Father Ganey many, many times.
There was Bob Hornwell was it?
RB: Yes, Bob Hornwell from Canada, he is another good friend of mine.
There is a picture of Charles Compton as well.
RB: Yes, I know him too.
Now did you go to Newport Schools in New South Wales at all?
RB: No, I haven’t. Whilst I do a lot of visiting overseas and I attend a lot of the conferences in Australia, I have never been able to attend the Schools for further education. I have always been too busy working my own lily pad, so to speak. As I say, Outlook Credit Union is a national organisation. We have a branch in every State and it is pretty involved.
Are you involved with Institute of Credit Union Managers at all?
RB: Yes I have been a Manager with ICUM I suppose for the last twenty years. I am also the Chairman of the Social Commitment Committee. I am also a Membership Councillor, representing nationally all credit unions in Australia. I am also a Member of the National Advertising Committee. So we have got a big role to play.
You were talking about the year of 1982. So on coming on the Board, what was your view of the big problems that you faced?
RB: Well, there were many problems, the problems being, I believe, that certain people whilst endeavouring to do their very, very best and to do a co-operative job, seemed to be aging. People not up with the modern thinking. Technology. When you are short of funds you can’t develop. We had credit unions that were dissatisfied and disinterested. They were very trying times. Was that the time when Richard Crosbie first came on to the Board as Chairman? Yes. Well we all came on to that Board at a very difficult time. We had had problems with the previous Chairman. So they were very, very hard times and we had a lot of dissension in the movement. So there was a big repair job to do and to rebuild the Association. That took some years actually.
You were on the Jubilee Lake Board you said?
RB: Yes and that was pretty horrendous as well. However, we ended up wrapping it up, it had to be disbanded. It was a terrible shame but there were quite substantial funds that were sort of foolishly spent perhaps, perhaps that is the right word to say.
What do you think was wrong with the proposition? Or was it maybe not done quick enough?
RB: Well, I know there will be a lot of other people who you have probably interviewed and I don’t know what they would say, but they would probably say that it was going to be the greatest thing.
Peter Hodgkinson surprisingly, and he was always a financial critic, reckoned that it was a good thing.
RB: Well I agree it was a beautiful thing, but people didn’t have the money. I mean it is all very well saying it is a great thing but it was pie in the sky stuff. Today, that is almost ten years ago, we are in a situation, the industry is in a situation, where we are trying to go to new systems. We have got all that doubt out there, we’ve got disunity. The wheel always turns. I mean you have to to have support. Whatever you are doing at the time has to be supported by the majority otherwise it falls apart. That is what happens.
Did your credit union have any money in Jubilee Lake?
RB: Yes we did. We were laughed at by quite a number of other supporters, we only had a $1,000 in there.
Oh well that wasn’t a great disaster.
RB: No it wasn’t. But we were looked and accused of being mean by many people. We said that we would just like to see the colour of the other money first. That is how I ended up on that Board with the Jubilee Lake. But it was a bit of a tragedy.
What about the other side of it. Your credit union, had you already computerised at that time? Were you working with Teledata?
RB: No. We were fortunate enough not to get sucked into Teledata. We never believed in Teledata. Before we went into any computerised system, coming from the Ansett organisation and I was also a systems analyst, we had a look at it we just couldn’t support Teledata, no.
So when you were on the Board you had to deal with it?
RB: Yes, and that was very difficult too. I just can’t think of the man’s name, Steele, that’s right. That man Steele. I met him on a couple of occasions and quite frankly he was the greatest bull-shitter, I saw him as a phoney. There was pattern there, the only man there who had all the knowledge in his head. There was no proper documentation and we just couldn’t support things like that.
What about the Canadian side of the operation, did you see anything of that?
RB: Yes, the Canadian side of the operation. Well the Canadian side is a vastly different philosophy. You are talking about the Desjardins movement?
No, I am talking about Teledata.
RB: I am sorry, I beg your pardon. No, well I wasn’t too sure of the whole thing. It just didn’t gell, there was a lot of unhappiness with that organisation.
So when you came in that had already been sold had it?
RB: Yes, to a great number of credit unions. There were big credit unions that thought it was a great idea and they were sold. They went ahead and signed up and consequently got burnt.
Your credit union, what form of computerisation hardware and software did you use?
RB: In those early days we were probably not much better off, but we were on a German system called Niksdorf. We had a very unpleasant experience with the Niksdorf operation, but nothing like what Teledata, we were compensated. I sued Niksdorf and got out of it. We went on to the GCS system.
Yes, lots of people had trouble with Niksdorf ones in those days.
RB: The system was great, it was just their people out here. Their programs didn’t work and the people out here didn’t understand them. But we got out of that. We had about a two-year horror show, but however it wasn’t the end of the earth, it wasn’t anything like the Teledata people experienced.
So were you at the really crucial meeting of the VCCA when the financial problems really bit home?
RB: Oh yes. They were particularly bitter days. However, we did have some good Directors. I mean Richard Crosbie has been at the helm for that long now it doesn’t matter. We had meetings and emergency meetings, I think we were meeting once a week sometimes twice a week. They were horrendous. I mean, however, we stuck together and we sorted it all out and we are still here today.
There have been a number of different Chairmen while you were on the Board. What were the reasons and how did Gavin Cook’s replacement of Richard Crosbie come about? Can you remember why?
RB: Well Richard Crosbie was appointed as National Chairman of our national organisation, the Australian Federation of Credit Union Leagues, (AFCUL). Directors at that time in 1989, you see Richard has only been off for the two years, felt that it could be too much of a work load for him and so that is why Gavin Cook was appointed.
But he didn’t seem to approve of that. He didn’t want to come off as Chairman. Richard Crosbie.
RB: No, he didn’t.
Can you remember how the numbers went? Who lined up on either side?
RB: Well I didn’t agree that Gavin Cook should have been appointed either. But, however, I am not too sure of the numbers. It was quite evident that there would be a change and the numbers obviously worked in favour of Gavin Cook.
What about Phillip Doughty when he came on?
RB: Yes that’s right. Phil was a breath of fresh air. Phil was marvellous. I think he is one of the better Chairmen that I have ever worked on a Board with. He is the biggest guy you have ever seen. Well he was particularly a breath of fresh air.
But he gave up at his own instigation, I understand. Did it put it to the others or did he just stand down?
RB: That is true. I was personally very annoyed and I told him so when I got word that he was going to stand down. But I guess he would have told you the reasons why he did stand down, did he?
Yes, he told me.
RB: Right. Well, I didn’t agree with them, but understanding his wishes I had to be supportive. So when Phil stood down. As we are moving towards Project Renewal and this Board of Directors will cease to exist I am sure sometime this year, we felt it in the best interest that as Richard is the National Chairman he should also Chair this now winding down Board of Directors here in this State.
He is also, I believe, Chairman of the Tasmanian Association and the ACT Association. Richard Crosbie.
RB: Oh yes, he would be now with this changing over yes. Well I mean we are not going to have any Boards of Directors at all. I think in another few months time there will only be just the one National Board.
Yes, well they have still got a court case in New South Wales.
RB: Yes we have got the injunction still in vogue in the Banana case and whilst there is a lot of people thinking it will just go away, I personally don’t think it will just go away. I personally believe we have a little bit of a spur under the saddle here and I just don’t understand why. But there is obviously some dissatisfaction between certain people. It really is just between people. Unfortunately I think it has become a very personal issue between personal individuals and it’s very hard to find a solution to remedy that type of behaviour.
As I go round recording people, and I have been to quite a lot of places in the country now, there seems to be a great deal of doubt, not about the way the service organisations are going, but about the way the representation will go.
RB: Well I’m a usually a very outspoken person on these particular issues. I am very supportive of our national project, our national process. I am very for and very pro, and so is out organisation, all for a national, a national organisation. However, I can share the concerns of other people all over Australia and those concerns I do share myself personally with some of the individuals. Some of those individuals in power, in my opinion, are not suitable. For however they got the job, they have got the job, but I believe when it becomes close to the finale, when D-day comes and the performance isn’t there, they will be seen for what they are and they will have to be replaced. People haven’t got any problem with the system. People have problems with certain individuals.
Yes, I understand what you are saying. But there is some doubt about the representation, not the individuals.
RB: Oh, you mean the representation on the Board. You could be suggesting that perhaps they are saying that also there we don’t have the right people. We started off saying we were going to have the best people, but we haven’t got the best people at all.
No they don’t reckon they have enough representation. The one National Board and the Council of forty, they don’t think it will work. The Board, well it is not enough for all the credit unions in the country. That is what they are criticising.
RB: Well I can understand people saying that. I don’t agree. I have to disagree with that strongly. Whilst I don’t agree that we have the right Board of Directors, I don’t know if we are ever going to get the right Board of Directors. But that is the Board we have got now and they wont be there forever. That Board will change over and we will get a balance of the correct people. The Membership Council, which I am one of, I am one of forty and I believe we have a fabulous representation. Let met tell you the people who are saying that it doesn’t work, believe you me it does work. It really does work.
Well they haven’t seen that yet. They all say that it wont.
RB: They can say it wont all they like but we have just completed four days in Albury after the AICUM Conference. We had two days National Planning and two days Membership Council. I think the Board thought that the Membership Council originally wouldn’t work. But let me tell you it is working. I can be more effective as a Membership Councillor than I could as a Director.
Of course the other criticism is really that there are too many professionals and not enough of the old volunteers.
RB: Well, I think it is the other way around, Richard. I think you have got the bull by the horns there.
It is a criticism I have heard.
RB: Well, I take a different viewpoint. I believe, I truthfully believe, yes our credit union was all founded on volunteers, that is true. However, a lot of these volunteers are highly paid volunteers now and some of them are quite old. Whilst I am saying you just don’t put them out and let them eat grass, I am saying they are in very, very powerful positions. I don’t believe they are half up with some of the subjects, they couldn’t possibly be. When they are retired people they say they have got more time to devote to this, more time to devote to that, but they are not up with the real issues at all, in my opinion. Now I am not saying let’s get rid of all the volunteers, but I am saying, I would like to see some qualification set. If you want to be a Director you have to perform and a lot of them see all the junkets that go with it, they have got nothing else to do, they interfere in the day-to-day operations of their Managers and their staff, and I don’t see it being correct at all. I really don’t see it. So I take that other view.
End Tape 1A: 4635 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes
25 MARCH 1992: VCCA52: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO ROGER BELL
When you were on the Board for a period of time, when you first came on, who were the various Managers of the VCCA that have been here?
RB: David Dinning, I think, he was Manager in 1983. Well David in my opinion was a gentleman, a real star. I think unfortunately for David he was just too co-operative and too soft and he just didn’t, in my opinion get the right staff around him. I think he made some errors of judgement where he got these younger people that just didn’t build or pull the Association together as it might have. But I still speak and write to David today and I think the world of David and his wife and family, I really do. It was a particularly hard time for him. He was there at the hard times.
He felt that he wasn’t getting the support of the Board.
RB: Well he was from me, but I agree with that, that is quite right. Have you spoken to David?
Yes.
RB: Well he didn’t get support from the Board. I think, and I have always said this so it is no news is Richard Crosbie hears what I am going to say, I thought Richard Crosbie as Chairman interfered far too much and never allowed David to really run the place. But then, you could blame David as well by not being strong enough. I think the combination of those two wasn’t a good combination all the time. I don’t say that with any malice, but it didn’t work and I could see it was coming to grief and it did eventually come to grief.
Were you on the Stabilisation Fund Committee?
RB: No, I have never been on the Stabilisation Fund Committee.
Did your credit union have a representative on the Committee?
RB: We do now.
No that is the Reserve Fund. That was the voluntary fund for members.
RB: No.
I understand the Committee then was virtually the credit unions overseeing the operations of the Manager.
RB: No, I didn’t have anything to do with that. They were hard days. They were pretty bloody hard days.
Did you disapprove of the way the money was invested?
RB: I think when I first came on there was a learning curve for me as well. I seem to get myself involved in all other sort of things, I would leave that to people like the Executive of the Board at the time. I can’t just think who the Executive were, but it would have been David, it would have been Richard Crosbie, Laurie Watt, was he on the Board at the same time as I was?
Yes, I think he was.
RB: Geary was.
Incidentally Christen Geary was he a Chairman when you first came on?
RB: Yes, and he was a terrible Chairman.
In what way?
RB: Well, I thought he was a bit of a cowboy. We have terminologies like a ‘bush cowboy’. He should never have been Chairman. That was all instigated by the Moe, the small community credit unions. There were cards dealt in those days.
What about the other Moe people, Laurie Watt, did you have a lot to do with him?
RB: I had a lot to do with Laurie Watt. He was one person who instigated my removal from the Board in 1988. I went off for one year. They ganged up on me and whilst I was the Chairman of the International World Forum that we held in 1988 here. I was the Chairman of that, I was that busy running that for twelve months when we had the largest international conference ever held in the world held in Melbourne. Whilst I was busy doing that I didn’t see the troops rearranging the cards so he got me off. But I ran again for the Board the next year and was re-elected again.
So that was in 1988 when that happened, I must have missed that. I have got you on the Board right the way through you see.
RB: Look I have been around a long time and it has been wonderful. Let me tell you it has been a wonderful experience.
I got that off the Register, but the Register is all very well when you go on, but it is very dodgy when you come off because sometimes it doesn’t put it at all.
RB: That’s true. I have worked with some really wonderful people. We have been through some very hard times. It is like those old-fashioned movies we used to see about the cowboys and Indians, when the covered wagons would set off and they would go so far across the plains and out of the bloody woods would come the Indians. The wagon train turns into a circle and they all shoot it out and the next stagger off again. That is what it has been like, and is like. You get things going. You get kicked to death by disaffiliates, by people who are unhappy. You re-group. You get the place on the map. You just get over one set of problems and move on and another set of problems arise. But that is what people are all about really, aren’t they.
Now this matter of dissident associations springing up. How has this happened?
RB: Well that in itself is another scenario. When I first came on to this Board there were members of Piccol Credit Union, there were members of ETU Credit Union on this Board. They no longer exist, they are two of the disaffiliates, two of the biggest disaffiliates. They had membership on this Board. They walked away when they lost membership in an election. When they lost membership they took their bat and ball and went home. Now I find that a pretty weak way to fight a battle. If that were to happen you run again the next year. But however there is some very personal, bitter experiences with personalities here.
But weren’t there issues as well?
RB: There were big issues on whether they paid for this and whether they paid for that. How much they had paid for the Trade Association and what they got for this. It has been never-ending.
Whose idea was it to split the Trade Association and the VCCA proper?
RB: I just can’t remember, but would that have happened in say about 1987?
Somewhere around there I would think.
RB: I believe that was a Board decision and I personally believe it was a very good decision in as much as it gave the Board of Directors two arms. There was a Business Services Council and there was the Trade Association Council. I think that freed the Board up from a lot of work like with legal and legislative changes and the financial business and the central bank and financial services, to allow the Board to actually just bloody well steer the organisation. It gave more hands to the management as well, I thought. I thought that was a good decision.
Were you anything to do with the Advisory Committee that led towards the Reserve?
RB: Yes, I was on that Committee. I was a member of the Trade Association as well.
Can you remember who chaired it and how?
RB: I think I did, and I think Marlene Jackson did. Somebody else, Harold Gardiner. I think there have been quite a number of people involved. But you also broke down into other areas where you get other Managers to help you. They come in on working bodies and committees. It has been very good really.
Were you on the Legislative Committee?
RB: Yes, I was on the Legislative Committee with Laurie Watt, Brian McMahon, Mike Jolley and Bob Newbound.
Is that the one that used to meet in Joe Galvin’s office, or is that another one?
RB: No that one used to meet here in the VCCA Board Room. They were very hard-working committees. It was very time consuming and very hard work. As you know with co-operatives we have that many bloody legal opinions, we have that many people who think they know everything about everything it just becomes an absolute bloody nightmare. I mean quite frankly I was glad I got off that committee. That was one, the Legislative Committee was one the best ones to get away from. I was then made Chairman of the Social Commitment Committee. Then I went away with a group of three or four other people and we formed the Money and Life Youth Camps. So I got stuck into Youth Camps and raising money for the Aboriginals or whatever we are going to do.
Does that lead into the Foundation as well?
RB: Similarly. It is working side by side with the Foundation, complimenting the Foundation.
Does it have anything to do with what John Newsome is doing with the World Council?
RB: No, not really.
They are working on some of the problems that Aborigines have in Australia.
RB: Well we certainly need to don’t we. I think we have got many more problems with the Aboriginals here in Australia than all the other bloody countries in the world put together with all their own populations. We seem to have groups of people who raise money and set up a place in the Philippines and all over the place, and I think we have a lot more work to do here in our own back yard. I think really we don’t want to know about it.
Well were you involved with AFCUL? Were you a delegate for a long while?
RB: Our credit union has been a member of AFCUL for twenty years. So we are a member of the organisation. So I have gone to all the World Council meetings, I have attended every CUES marketing meeting. In 1983 I must have been a delegate.
Shortly after that they changed the structure and had the formal Board then. I think at that time they had the Board and the Executive in place.
RB: Yes they did.
Whereas before that it used to be all sort of run in a wide open arena.
RB: That is a good description, an arena. It used to be called an arena event.
Did you ever go to AFCUL in the days of Dermot Ryan?
RB: Dermot was a lovely person. As a matter of fact, David and I, David Dinning and I, used to really just go out of our way to spend quite a deal at all the AFCUL conventions. I think I went to my twenty-fifth Annual Convention of AFCUL the last one on the Gold Coast. Last year.
Did you have any knowledge of what went on when Dermot Ryan was forced to resign?
RB: No, not really. I have heard all sorts of rumours which I am not really too sure that I understand. However, I do think sometimes that, and touch wood it doesn’t happen to me, people should call it a day when they are on top, rather than be forced to do something. I really do think we should do something about it ourselves.
Have you had anything to do with the Institute of Credit Union Directors, ICUD?
RB: Well, I am a Managing Director. I have been asked to join, but with all my involvement with VCCA and Membership Council and all my involvement with everything, I have decided not to. The reason I have decided not to is again a volunteer group which I have said earlier I don’t really see it that way and I have got better things to do with my time. The name of the game is as you know there is the AICUM group, which is the Australian Institute of Credit Union Managers, now we are formed and we invite all Directors to our annual event. They all come, I mean we have a hell of a roll up. I don’t think they will have enough roll up, I don’t see it being successfully run. I am not pouring any cold water over anything, I just don’t think it is necessary.
What about the credit union Directors’ education?
RB: Credit union Directors’ education, well as a Director I think I am probably as well educated in credit unions matters of anybody in the country.
No, not your own, but have you been involved with it?
RB: No, I haven’t been involved with it from a training or teaching point of view. But I do attend most credit union educational type seminars or programs. I agree it is going very, very well, but for Directors I just don’t see it.
None of your Directors go to ICUD?
RB: Look, I have been a couple of their functions. It has only been going for a couple of years anyway and that is difficult and I do think it is difficult in this environment where we have this disunity problem here in Victoria. I think it is a big problem. You have Directors that want the success for other Directors. But when you have got this big split and the disunity problem we have got here in Victoria with five of the largest credit unions disaffiliated. One has just come back as a matter of fact because Telecom has disaffiliated from the group, so there is only four of them in it now. So hopefully, very soon they might all be back.
In Queensland they have got two associations and in New South Wales the have got two associations.
RB: Yes well in Queensland there is a big move afoot there at the moment and there is a Special General Meeting called for 4 April 1992 where there is either going to be a big split or there is going to be a get together. I am tipping it might be a get together.
Well what else have we not discussed about AICUM in particular. Can you think what is your experience that we haven’t covered at all?
RB: Well, with AICUM, I mean AICUM is a very successful, very, very successful and professional organisation. Graham Humphreys, who is the National President, and all his Directors have over the years done a phenomenal job, a really great professional job.
Have you been on the Victorian Executive?
RB: No. I deliberately kept away from that. I have been to every AICUM conference since we started in Albury about twenty years ago. No I have decided there are certain horses for courses and I believe they are suitably taken care of.
So what else at the VCCA have you been particularly involved with?
RB: Well, I think that is probably about all really. I mean it mightn’t sound much but I think the most important thing of what I really have tried to do, I have always been equal for every credit union. Since the break away group started, I have still invited them to my Board meetings. I go out of my way to speak to them. I endeavour to encourage them to rejoin, I encourage them to stop thinking about the personal differences they had. This is another year. This is a new ball game. Stop fighting us, come and join, get back on my side so I can help. I have very similar view points to a lot of them, but it is no good running away. You have got to sit around the table and discuss them and talk to people, encourage people. What they are doing does nothing for anybody. However, I have told them all that but they don’t see as I do. But I mean, they are just causing major problems and they are causing big problems for themselves. Are you speaking to any of the disaffiliates, these people.
No, that is all the Directors. The ones of that I have spoken to are on the other list. Ian Larsson has been on and Phillip Elliott.
RB: Oh, Phillip, well you would have all the stories of the other side there. He is entitled to his opinion, but it is just a shame. I like Phillip very much. We were in Chicago, we were at the World Council last year in Madison and the flights got jammed up for about six hours, so we spent some time in a bar and Phillip let go with everything he had. I just said to him, ‘Well, I hear some of the things you are saying, but what a shame you don’t channel half of your energies into helping us get things fixed up instead of throwing the petrol on the fire all the time.’ I mean really a lot of his issues are issues that everyone can see, but they never have an answer. They never have a plan. Now no matter what we do they will always criticise and tear it apart. Now that is OK but where is the alternative? I think they will all be back, I really do. I think it just a matter of time. With the Australian Financial Institutions Code Legislation, the AFIC Legislation coming up now, I really do think they are going to have no alternative than to say, ‘OK, we’d like to come back. We have got a lot of rules and a lot of points that we would like to make a big mention of. Can we have this for consideration?’ But I think they need to come back.
Now as far as the disaffiliates in the first instance, at the present moment they have gone back to some of the more basic things like dues and subscriptions and such like haven’t they?
RB: Who, the disaffiliates?
Yes.
RB: Well disaffiliates, they’ve gone back and they’ve registered the Credit Union Association, or whatever it is, anyway it is another association. They have to pay dues. It is costing them more now than what it does if they were affiliated.
There have been a number of changes over the years with the banking system that you have operated in the VCCA and in the credit union movement in Victoria, have you been involved in that at all?
RB: Well not so much no. From a Board of Directors’ point of view we have agreed to or disagreed with whatever management have set up. But it has been a hands-on management type of function. They have done all of the negotiations, blah, blah, blah. I think they carry them through also with Reg Elliott’s national contacts with the national banking arrangements. It generally becomes a hands-on national management and State management type thing and I think the Board really goes along with recommendations.
Your credit union has gone along with those arrangements with the National Bank?
RB: Always. Our Outlook Credit Union has for twenty years fully supported the AFCUL, the national organisation and our State organisation.
Was your credit union involved with the CUES with Teledata?
RB: No, we never ever favoured Teledata, whilst we didn’t ever create a fuss. The State associations and the national association didn’t tell you what computer system to buy. That was an individual decision by credit unions. So we didn’t have a problem with that at all.
Well what about the Automatic Teller Machine system?
RB: The Readicard network?
Yes.
RB: Yes my friend there, Phil Daddo, I will never forget it, we had a meeting that said, ‘Right we are going to go this national network, this Readicard network, we are all going to go.’ Well of course the more who go the cheaper it is going to be. So OK we investigated it, this great co-operative movement, blah, blah, blah, everything will be fine. I think Outlook Credit Union went in. I am not sure, but I think there are only about five credit unions in Victoria that are in. Ed Credit, surprisingly enough, thought they got a better deal with the State Bank. Police went and did something with the National Bank. Before you knew where we were, our national was costing us an arm and a leg. But we have stayed with it since day one.
Some of it went in through Visa as well.
RB: Well that just shows you that we obviously didn’t have a strong enough association to really sell it well. But in New South Wales Readicard took off beautifully.
But initially there had to be seven credit unions. I think seven credit unions got behind it in the first instance.
RB: Well we had twenty in Victoria. But then only seven, or five, put up their money.
Well it was seven that put the money up there.
RB: It is a great system. It is just expensive.
Well it will all be one system soon.
RB: It is almost all over.
What about VICNET and AUSNET, the situation there?
RB: Well I think VICNET and AUSNET have been wonderful organisations. Like I said before, the credit union movement is like the covered wagon. It is like an expedition. We are very young at what we are doing. Our competitors, the banks and building societies, are monsters compared to what we are. We have done it and what we have done we have done very, very well. So we should be giving ourselves a few pats on the back. We have done a lot of things well.
Do you think that the Victorian credit unions and the VCCA resented what the New South Wales people were doing, developing national products and pushing them into AFCUL?
RB: Well, I think there would be yesses and no’s to that question. Outlook Credit Union, my credit union, does not support all of the products that they produce. But I don’t get cross about that.
Well lots of New South Wales ones don’t either.
RB: I mean, I don’t get cross about that. I will use the ones that I feel are appropriate and I won’t use the ones that I don’t wish to. I think it is pretty difficult. If there is a market there is a market. There has always been this rivalry, and I don’t know if it is ever going to change, it is like Essendon playing Collingwood, it is like Victoria versus New South Wales. I mean people are very critical.
My point is that the New South Wales people, particularly Reg Elliott and his group, they moved across from the New South Wales Association into AFCUL and then they gradually took everything with them, so to speak. It was planned, there is no doubt about that, but they seemed to have left Victoria out of the reckoning.
RB: Well, I am not sure that they left Victoria out of the reckoning. Victoria played it a bit smarter, I think. I mean if you don’t play their games, or you don’t talk their language, we are not left out. They are very much aware we do not go along with everything. Not like in New South Wales where they all follow the yellow brick road, or most do, the majority does. But it is not the same in Victoria.
What about insurance in Victoria?
RB: Well, insurance in Victoria is another story. I don’t have anything to do with the National Product of Insurance in Victoria. Insurances are split up. You are talking about the Bond, the Package and House Contents, Car that sort of thing. Well at Outlook Credit Union we use our own Transport Industries Insurance, which is an Ansett organisation, to do all our house, boats, cars, with the other insurances such as bond and package and death which deal with the CUNA group. Now I suppose they say Reg Elliott and his gang are going to put to death CUNA and we will all be in CIC. Well, I have been listening to that for quite a while. I am still in CUNA and I am a policy holder of CUNA and they can’t do anything with CUNA unless we say so. So there is something there, but I don’t know what the answer is, but however it must be getting close now.
Did you have anything to do with the early battles with CUNA Mutual and CUMIS?
RB: Oh yes. I won’t join a mob of vigilantes to have a problem. If I have got a problem I would handle that myself. I did, I handled that about fifteen years ago. We changed from CUNA and I wouldn’t join CIC, I went to the National Mutual, I think it was a National Mutual special insurance fund. I stayed with them for two years and then CUNA came back to me with a better proposal that covered multiple death, or multiple accidents, or something. I mean I could have a whole plane load of members and the plane crash and I am up for monstrous claims, so they came back and wrote a special program for us. I have been with CUNA ever since. I monitor that annually. I call for proposals for my business each year and if CUNA don’t shape up, I would change tomorrow.
Have you ever been involved with any head policy, or insurance policy with the VCCA?
RB: No.
Was it ever proposed?
RB: No.
Not in your time, right. Because that is what all the arguments were with CUNA Mutual in New South Wales, over the head policy and what they were getting back out of it.
RB: Well New South Wales is a difficult situation. I mean, I think they used to have three associations. Now they have still got two associations. Again there is bitterness between the Reg Elliott’s, the John Grenata’s and it is never going to go away. They are almost ready to retire anyway. When they both retire, well Reg Elliott retires in eighteen months time and I believe that has been stated quite clearly, December 1993 is the end of Mr Elliott, and I think Grenata is looking at maybe the end of this year or next year. So you see sooner or later these people just leave the industry. Whilst they have done wonderful jobs, there is a lot of unpleasantness
Now is there anything we haven’t covered?
RB: I don’t think so, other than the fact that this particular Board is going to fold up this year and I will have done my duties. It has been a wonderful experience. We have had some hellish fights but I don’t bear any grudges on anybody. It has been a wealth of experience and I have enjoyed it very, very much.
Will there be any committee overseeing the local branch of the Credit Union Services Corporation (Australia) Limited, CUSCAL?
RB: Well I hope not. I mean this because if Outlook Credit Union, my credit union, can be a national credit union, and it has been for twenty years, I don’t see why the industry can’t be national. I wouldn’t like to see a committee overseeing and interfering and sticky-beaking and God knows what. Our credit union has fully supported this Project Renewal, this new system since day one and I can hardly wait. Whilst a lot of the people can’t see any savings, you will never see the savings until it has actually all happened. So we are looking forward to it and I hope there are no local committees, I really do.
Nothing further?
RB: No, I’ve got nothing further, but thank you for your time.
Thank you for your time, Mr Roger Bell.
End Tape 1B: 4638 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.