LIDCOMBE CREDIT UNION 6 JANUARY 1993: RICHARD RAWORTHY TALKING TO Ms ROSE MARY GALLAGHER
Whereabouts did you grow up, Miss Gallagher?
RG: I spent my first eight years in a little place called Darlington Point in the Riverina area. Then I came to Sydney and I have been here ever since, at Five Dock.
Your brother, who became Father Jack Gallagher, was he younger than you?
RG: Yes, he was a bit younger than I am. He spent a couple of years in the country and then he came to Sydney.
What year was he born, do you know?
RG: 1922.
So he would be a lot younger.
RG: A bit younger, yes.
When you came to Sydney, where did you go to school?
RG: I went to Dalravie College at Five Dock, Presentation Convent.
Was there anything you liked or disliked at school?
RG: Did I like school? Yes, I did, I liked school very much. I wouldn’t haven’t minded doing another year. I would have done another year at school if I had had the opportunity perhaps. I went through to my Leaving Certificate.
Did you go to work after that?
RG: Yes, I went to work after that. I worked for a while at Farmers for about eighteen months. Then I went into the GPO, into the telephone department, and I was there for sometime until I came here in 1961.
The telephone department, was that the old days of the push-pull switch?
RG: Yes. I was a telephonist to start with but I became a monitor supervisor and I trained staff for the last twelve years that I was there.
When did you hear about the credit union movement?
RG: I heard about the credit union movement I’d say probably just after the War, it might have been just before. I heard about it through Father Murter, who was the Editor of the Melbourne Catholic Paper. He had been over to Antigonish and he wrote a little pamphlet on it. He was a journalist actually and he wrote a very interesting little pamphlet. I heard about it then and I had already known about the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, the Papal Encyclical which came out. It was written whilst I was still at school in 1931, Quadragissimo Anno, it was the fortieth year after Rerum Novarum. Rerum Novarum was written by Leo XIII in 1891. Then forty years after there was another Encyclical. I had studied those because when I left school a lot of the serious kind of people, Catholics, were studying them, the young people and that and I happened to be in with them. I knew about these things and what had happened you know. Desjardins credit union I knew about that. Desjardins actually set the first credit union up in Levis, Quebec. He set it up as a result of a sermon that was given by the priest on Quadragissimo Anno. This was helping the people to save.
Did you get this information before your brother?
RG: Yes. Well he really got on to it through me, in a way, because I had the Encyclicals there. I can remember he read the Encyclical when he was still a student and he thought it was pretty good. It was general talk in the household and among the people, they were interested in this kind of thing. He would have got on to that straight after he left school, or even before perhaps.
Father Kevin Burton, who he was at the Seminary with, he told me that he was talking about credit unions in the days when he was at the Seminary.
RG: Yes, he was always interested in the social teachings. We worked together a lot actually and I wouldn’t swear that he might have got on to it before. But at that time, you know, we were interested in those Encyclicals, always interested in the Encyclicals of the Church. Especially the social teachings, which have been rather neglected actually as far the general Church has been concerned. But they are taking a greater interest in it now thank God.
So when did your brother start forming credit unions and were you involved at that time?
RG: Oh yes, I was involved right from the beginning. He started soon after he was ordained actually, might even have been before. Before he was ordained, when they were still students, in their holidays, their Christmas holidays, they used to go to various organisations and study groups and things, getting the feel of the Catholic social life. Yes, he would have been talking about it when he was a student, certainly. He would have left school in 1939, so yes that is right, he would have known before he went to the Seminary about these Encyclicals and then interested in them, before he even became a student for the priesthood. When he came out onto the active field he began applying them. It is all right to have theory, but you do need to put theory into practice and he was very successful in putting it in. He understood people and he got the feel of people, he could mix very well with people of all levels. He would go in and sit with them and talk in their kitchen, or something, for hours on end really.
Did he go, or did you go, and see credit unions before he started forming them himself?
RG: Did he see other credit unions in operation before he started? No, he didn’t really, but he read about them.
What about Universal?
RG: Oh well, Universal was pretty small, then. It had only just started. Actually we always said, and the ones who started it knew too, it had too big a community actually, too wide a community to really be effective. Kevin Yates admitted that and they knew that it was a lot of work to get it in a small area, it was easier to get it like a central thing. Universal played a part. I knew about Universal and we knew about the theory of it. He wasn’t a member of any big one but he did study it and what had happened, particularly in Antigonish, how they worked there.
He would have read Father Coady’s book?
RG: Yes, he had Father Coady’s books and also a contact with the Registry, with the Registrar. We had a good friend.
Now this Lidcombe Credit Union here, was that the first one he started?
RG: Yes, Lidcombe was the first one. But I will tell you how it started was the discussion among the young men, very young men they were, in the area here. They belonged to the club, you know and they used to go down there. The club was all right. The Lidcombe Catholic Workers’ Club, they were members there. But apart from the social side of it, the meeting, they were young fellows who needed something a bit more. They had been keen on playing a good part in tidying up the communist situation after the War. When they finished that and things seemed to be pretty good, that was under control, they all were interested in the unions. They were young fellows who were interested in what they were doing and they wanted something more practical, so he got them studying the Encyclicals, the Rerum Novarum and Quadragissimo Anno. He also told them the story of Antigonish, what had happened in Antigonish and how to apply these things. So they said, ‘Can’t we have a go? Something practical.’ So that is how this credit union started, through those discussions and the practical leanings of the people. Well then they got together and they ran cottage discussions, which were most successful. This was in the days before television of course, and they ran them like Dr Coady and Jimmy Tonkins did in the little fishing villages around Nova Scotia. It took about six months to set this credit union up. Well he was mostly in it, and then he got a group of us, what we called the Development Group, we were the education unit.
You were one of them?
RG: I was one of them, of course, I was one of them.
Who were the others, do you remember?
RG: Yes, Jim McMannus, he was a member of the parish here, Helen Fowler, Ken Franklin, John Hickey, he was on the first, Laurie Marr. There were about a dozen of us.
I notice here you have a Credit Union Bulletin which was the official organ of the credit union co-operative.
RG: Yes we had a Credit Union Bulletin, we did run it for a few years. We ran a few issues, but we didn’t keep it up. Now the first one was got out, the first few, by Helen Fowler. She was an author and she published a few books actually. She was the one who got the early ones of these out. Then we did get a few more out. Helen Fowler had gone to Ireland and I think might have got some of them out. But Helen Fowler, she sent news from Ireland. She was well known among the credit unions members as an original Director of Development and Editor of the first Credit Union Bulletins. She is at present in Ireland. She got a group going there and Father went subsequently. He was several times in Ireland and helped them set their early credit unions up. Australian Antigonish Credit Union Co-operative Development Limited, that was what we were called in the first place. The Registry subsequently asked us to change our name because I think they wanted to put in a development section. So we were asked to change our name, but that is how we used to call ourselves, the Australian Antigonish Co-operative Development Limited. But we did set it up and it developed credit unions. What came after, because you see we don’t regard credit unions as just an end in itself. Not only is it occupied with money but it is a basis, a platform for cooperation. That is how we differ very much from the credit unions that are here big today and the credit unions in America. You know the story about the credit unions in America, do you, what happened there. You see Desjardins set the first one up in Levis in Quebec and it was like people saving together so that they might eventually own. Now that is still going, a very strong thing. As I said before it was set up as a result of hearing the sermon by the priest on Quadragissimo Anno and Rerum Novarum. Jimmy Tonkins and Dr Coady used that credit union as a basis for their Antigonish Movement, people saving together. You know the story don’t you? The people in the little fishing villages were very very poor and so much so that at the end of the fishing season they were in debt to the local shop, or the local general store. Then when there was no fishing because it was winter time, they spent a lot of time around their kitchen stoves. So that is how he got them educating themselves, he said education is the key to bettering yourself. They thought he was mad to start with, but then they began to realise that perhaps he did have something. He started giving them books to read and things to discuss to better their position. The idea is, and this is pure Catholic social teaching, that the people in a community should have control of their own lives, what happens. In any community if they all get together to discuss their needs, they will come up with an answer. It is the people within the community who should decide what help they get from outside. It shouldn’t come from up top, it should be the people who decide what they want. Well they had very little, but they decided first of all their savings and they got a savings society, or a credit union, going. By means of loaning their money they were able to buy. I suppose first of all say they would buy a fishing net probably between a few of them and then a few more fishing nets. Later they would buy a boat so they could go further deep-sea fishing. Then they got to the stage where the would transport into the canneries. Eventually they owned their own canneries and they were very successful and self-contained. They became quite prosperous, this little area that was so very, very poor. It was through their own efforts that they did that. Other communities can do the same. We had examples of that in our early credit unions, which of course is now forty years ago, forty years and more. Now Lidcombe Credit Union was set up forty years ago, last year. Then we moved to Revesby, Father Gallagher went to Revesby as a curate and he didn’t lose much time in setting it going there. We had a very wonderful experiment over there and it served those people for quite a number of years, I suppose for best part of thirty years, which is a generation. They applied that idea even more fully than we did here. We had a nice trading company here, but over there they had a very good trading company. They could sell anything, they could get anything that they needed from baby’s napkins, basinets, to a suite of furniture, anything, they could get, like through their own store.
When did you start a trading company here?
RG: The trading company here started a service, the main one started in about 1952 or fairly soon afterwards. There is something in the Minutes there. I think it was 1952 the service started. They started the trading and that was about three credit unions joined in for it to start with. Its greatest implementation was really based at Revesby and Smithfield and Waitara, Waitara had a good trading company, Waitara and Panania. We had very good trading companies in all those places but they worked together. We worked together. We had people employed too.
Was that called HUB?
RG: Yes, that was called HUB, Housewives United Buyers, it still exists. Now the Housewives United Buyers the first thing that they started was fruit and vegetables, because that was a real need. To follow the co-operative idea properly you have got to fulfil a need. Well their need was at that stage to get fresh fruit and vegetables and they got beautiful fruit and vegetables. But then they gradually, and according to their registration they could handle anything, they handled everything from baby’s napkins to the suite of furniture and anything in between.
Where did this relate to the credit union?
RG: Well, they were all the same members, credit union members. But how it relates to the credit union is that the credit union can supply the finance. They can borrow from the credit union even to take shares in their trading company, they can borrow from the credit union to make purchases from their trading company, but it is all their own money. The profit goes back to themselves, or back to their organisation. That is the idea. It probably would still be, except for the full employment that came in 1960s, I’d say that this would have lasted probably better.
How did the Yass Credit Union and Crookwell Credit Union start?
RG: How did the Yass Credit Union start? Well Bishop Young, who was the Bishop there at the time, he was interested in the social teachings of the Church and he wanted to set a credit union up I believe. Prior to that there were some credit unions and that in Victoria, the Rural Movement had some going that’s right, they called them credit societies but they were the same thing actually. We were registered as a savings and loans society under the Co-operation Act which was a very good thing, prior to calling them credit unions. Well he was anxious to set one up and Father Maloney, whose curate was down in Sydney at a retreat I think with my brother and he drove him to get the train. I think they missed the train at Strathfield, or they missed in town, he drove him to Strathfield, they missed it at Strathfield so he kept driving him and eventually got him further up the line. In the meantime he gave him the full story of the credit unions. Father Maloney said the Bishop wanted them and he knew something about it. So he explained it all to Father Maloney and Father Maloney went back and he told the Bishop. The Bishop invited Father to help and it was through us, we all went down at different times and we ran our discussions and all that, and he was in on it too, and we set up a lovely credit union, a lovely development at Yass. The Reserve Board was responsible for us losing it.
What do you mean, it was amalgamated with Berrima?
RG: Yes, they amalgamated eventually with Berrima, which was a great pity.
What about the Tasmanian ones?
RG: Well, I think that was Bishop Young again. He went to Tasmania see and he interested them a bit in it. They came over here, the Tasmanians, and I think Father went to Tasmania too. There was tic-tac between us. I mean some of them, one of the Tasmanians at least who used to come over fairly regularly to see me and he always came in to meet us and have discussions and that. But I don’t know if Tasmania is mentioned here.
No, it isn’t, but I happen to know that is all. Is there anywhere else that credit unions were started up out of Father Gallagher’s initiative. For instance, I know that one was started in Rockhampton?
RG: That’s right, Rockhampton.
But I think that was independently of Father Gallagher, do you know?
RG: He was in on that too, because I went up twice I think to Rockhampton. He had been up to Rockhampton. No we were very much in touch with Rockhampton actually, early on. But it is not entirely ours. They used a lot of our ideas from the education point of view. They invited us up. I know I went up at least I think twice to Rockhampton, certainly once. Other of our members were at Rockhampton. ?????????? I remember was at Rockhampton. Then some of these down the south coast too. Singleton Credit Union there was, Crookwell Credit Union.
Well Singleton is up in the north and Crookwell isn’t far from Yass.
RG: No. Father Maloney went to Crookwell and he set one up there and he invited us to help him. We have been up there for weekends and that. There was one at Mudgee, I can remember going to Mudgee, Mudgee Credit Union.
How did that happen, the Mudgee one?
RG: Down the south coast there, I’ve forgotten the name of the place now. We had them all around, they were very good.
The Antigonish Association?
RG: We don’t have an Antigonish Association actually. We never formed into an Association, which mightn’t have been a good thing actually. If we had had an Association we might have saved them perhaps, you know. We didn’t have an Antigonish Association.
But that was still called the Australian Antigonish Movement wasn’t it?
RG: Yes, we called it a Movement. They were the Movement you see, they were part of the Movement. They all stem from the Australian Antigonish Development Limited, which is the middle thing here.
Now how as that financed?
RG: How was it financed? From the members. Only from members, we didn’t have any outside finance. No outside finance at all. It was all financed through the members. They purchased the buildings. You see this building, they bought first of all an old house, a cottage, then they bought a second cottage and they rented the cottage. They subsequently pulled it down and built this building here. They paid for it themselves. We didn’t have any loans or any outside finance for it. The same goes for Revesby, they bought a property at Revesby, they bought a property at Waitara, they bought a property at Asquith and a property at Yass. They all had properties, you know. But it was member finance, finance from their funds themselves. Which just goes to show you what you can do, small people co-operating together. It is wonderful really. It would be the solution of the present time too, except that it is so very difficult for small communities, people on small incomes to set up a thing. In fact, I think it is practically impossible these days. They have got to pay five thousand dollars to register, five thousand dollars mind you to register a credit union. Well.
Tell me in the first instance when credit unions started in Australia they seemed to start from organisations like building societies, in New South Wales anyway. But yours started purely out of the community.
RG: Ah yes, ours started from grassroots. Ours started from nothing, absolutely.
But it was based on the parish wasn’t it?
RG: Yes. The boundaries of the parish. Yes it was based on the parish I will admit that. Anyone living within the area of the parish, they didn’t have to be Catholics. Their neighbours, friends and neighbours. But the parish was the boundary. You see you had to have a bond, you had to have a community of interest in those days. It has broadened a lot now. But you had to have a community of interest. It is the only way. I don’t think that many of them would know, like the ones that are running them at the present time, they would be able to set up a credit union, they wouldn’t know how. I tell you it is jolly hard work and it is months of work. We used to be out at night at discussions, running discussions for at least three months before it was set up. Running rallies at the weekend. The people were really enthusiastic, they were very keen. Then there would be other occasions you know, like practically every weekend you would have to go somewhere because one of them was having a get-together or a rally or something. They were great days and I enjoyed them very much. You say how did we start, we just started. We used to say get us one or two families, you know, that is all you need to start with. They couldn’t believe this, the people, when they said, ‘How do you start?’ If you just get us, particularly, a family, a husband and wife who have a few children, small children. Get them to come to a discussion, well then they invite a few more people next time and then you probably have about ten or twelve people at a discussion. Now somebody from here will offer to have a discussion at their place and they assemble their friends. That is the way you do it, or that is the way we did it. I would say it was the way that Antigonish did it. They had kitchen stove discussions in the winter time, round the kitchen stove, whereas we had them in wherever they could, their sitting room or their verandah or that. They had one rule, that they only had tea and biscuits. That is how you get this emblem, tea and biscuits. They were not to be elaborate because a lot of the people really couldn’t afford it. They couldn’t afford it and it wasn’t fitting that you put on an elaborate supper. But you know what happens when you get the housewives, one will make a sponge cake and the next one has cream in it, and the next one has cream and jam and icing, and so on. We used to stick to biscuits, just tea and biscuits.
Where did they get the name Ideas have hands and feet?
RG: That is Antigonish. That is Dr Coady or Jimmy Tonkins, Jimmy Tonkins I think. Ideas have hands and feet, I think it is Father Jimmy Tonkins from Antigonish.
And that is the slogan you used for the Credit Union Bulletin?
RG: Yes. We still use it. That is a discussion in progress there. That is an actual photograph taken at a discussion group. They were really great days and I would like to revive them really, if it were at all possible. I think television, and maybe people have got a little tired of television, and perhaps they might welcome it back again. But people don’t seem to talk as much as they used to. The was no interruption of somebody’s program around the television when we started these things. Out in the outer suburbs, say, or all the places where we worked, I would say, it was a great social gathering.
End Tape 1A: 4195 Words: 1 hour 35 minutes.
LIDCOME CREDIT UNION 6 JANUARY 1993: RICHARD RAXWORTHY TALKING TO Miss ROSE MARY GALLAGHER
There is one thing I wanted to know about Father Gallagher’s attitude to the New South Wales Credit Union League and his reason for that?
RG: His attitude to the New South Wales Credit Union League, he recognised the fact that it was quite a different thing from what we were working for. That was the only thing. It is quite different and a lot of people don’t realise that. I think I touched on it earlier, or did I? He had no animosity to it. They were quite entitled to work their own way, but not to control us. See, what happened in the beginning was the Antigonish Movement, Desjardins first credit union, the basis of that is used by the Antigonish Movement, and the idea behind it is, as I have explained, that you use it as a basis. Those same people keep working and they use the credit union as a bank and it helps them borrow from it to set up their trading companies and things. That community becomes very self-supporting and prosperous see. Now, that was very successful there, over in Nova Scotia. A man by the name of Frauen, who was a Boston merchant, he saw the possibilities of providing, of people themselves providing their own credit instead of the business people having to do it. So he employed Bergengren to go right throughout America setting up these credit unions chiefly at places of employment. They were to be, as they are, a means of supplying the credit to buy from the big stores and so on. Now that is virtually what happens here in Australia. What they did, once they started going out into the open field, and I might say that a lot of those early credit unions that were started in places of employment and so on, were started by members, Directors who had got their experience here in our Movement. It can all be traced, either here at Lidcombe or Revesby or one of the other credit unions, but chiefly from here at Revesby. I think you met one this morning, he was speaking this morning to Mr Banbury, Maurie Banbury, and he was one of them that got his experience here. Now there were quite a number of them, the bigger credit unions that are now operating. Now we recognised that. I myself set one up in the Post Office when I was there. But we did just to see how they went. I mean it is a community, it is a possibility and it is all right in its own way. But, it doesn’t have the effect of bettering the conditions of the ordinary little people like our idea has. All those that are in the places of employment at the present they followed specifically the American line which was the League and Bergengren. It wasn’t the Antigonish one at all.
But surely that is only the difference between a community credit union and an industrial one?
RG: I don’t quite see. Oh one is a community and one is an industrial and they come from all different walks of life. Like the come from different suburbs and so on.
But they all work at the same place.
RG: They all work at the same place but you can see now that the people in these big places of employment where these credit unions are, they are all on good salaries. A lot of them have their money paid into their credit union, they can easily get loans and so on.
You didn’t allow any pay-roll deductions from businesses at your credit union?
RG: No. Well, if people wanted it that way, yes, but there weren’t many of them. We preferred them to come and pay itself. It is better training actually. It is better for them to come and pay themselves and for them to have control of their own money. I think it is. But if they wanted a certain amount taken out of their salary and paid to the credit union, there would have been just a few who would have done that, but not many. Now you see the possibility in a community where you could have some people weak and some people strong, some people employed some people not employed, and the very fact that they are. The credit union is a mutual aid society, it is not just for money. It is for other things and the fact that people know one another. That is the idea of it, that you keep it fairly small, not more than about five hundred people they say. If you have got the people in the community that know one another, that is the basis of their honesty too. The fact that they know one another and they don’t let their friends down. They help in other circumstances, not money at all. If people want a loan you will always find that there can be some other problem that is causing it. They have another problem. It is as I say for mutual aid. A small credit union can be very effective in a community as we found very early on with our credit unions. I know of at least two cases where women were saved with an operation, a cancer operation. At Revesby Credit Union there was a woman there, it had only been going a couple of years but she knew they would help her. She got cancer of the breast and she was a widow and she sent her little girl up to ask would one of the Directors come down to see her. She had been to the doctor and he had said an urgent operation, five hundred pounds I think it was then, five hundred pounds. Now she could get two hundred and fifty, but the two hundred and fifty that they would be able to loan, they could lend two hundred and fifty pounds and that would give her the amount. So I don’t know whether they had it or not, but they would quickly get it. The idea is if you haven’t got it in a case like that you go and get it. Fifty dollars from this one, or probably twenty dollars, and people will all put it in for a case like that. Now that woman is still alive today and that was about 1955. Now another case in our Five Docks Credit Union. It had only been started a few weeks and a similar thing happened, another cancer of the breast. She said, ‘I haven’t got the money.’ Somebody said, ‘Why don’t you ask the credit union?’ She said, ‘Oh they have only just set up, they wouldn’t have it.’ ‘Try them, just the same.’ So she went to see the Secretary and he knew one of the members that had a fair bit of savings and he put the two hundred and fifty pounds in the credit union bank and she was able to borrow it. Now isn’t that a good thing? If you have got these structures in a community you can help cases like that. That is what happens. Now another case that comes to mind is a man who came up and he wanted to borrow to buy clothes for the children. His wife had left him and he had these four children. One of the Directors said, ‘How would you go about buying the clothes,’ he said, ‘I know if it was my case I wouldn’t know what to get because my wife always does the shopping.’ So the man said, ‘Well as a matter of fact, my wife always did it too,’ and he said, ‘I don’t know too much about it.’ This Director said, ‘Would you like my wife to go and help you.’ The man said, ‘Oh I would, very much.’ So she went and helped him with the shopping and everything was all right. She probably helped them later too. But that is the kind of thing that can happen. That loan was far more effective and good for him because he had the free advice and help of the Director’s wife. Now that kind of thing goes on and on. People come in here now for different reasons. They want papers filled in and the best thing to do about this and the best thing to do about that. It is not money always that they want.
The New South Wales Credit Union League and some of the other credit union leagues were also after helping people, but they were under the regulations of the Registrar. Did Father Gallagher fight the Registrar’s regulations?
RG: Oh yes we fought. There is a lot of evidence of that. When the Acts were going through, or the changes to the Acts, when the Credit Union Act was going through and the amendments to the Credit Union Act in the 1960s, he fought that. He fought everything that he thought was discriminating against the little people and against the principles of co-operation too. But see now how they have got it, they have got it so far removed from the original idea that it is unrecognisable. I think there is no room for a credit union as we envisioned it in the first place, a a co-operative organisation. There is no room for it now under the present legislation. As a matter of fact it actually says in one of the regulations that the Fincom is not set up to help them, or to keep them floating but to make it easy for them to amalgamate and transfer it. As a matter of fact I can show you in writing there, ‘the strong should take over the weak’. Now that means financially strong should take over the weak. Now what is going to happen I reckon that it wont be very long before they only have one or two and they will all go bung.
What about the battle that loomed again with Father Gallagher over the setting up of the Reserve Board in New South Wales? He had a battle against the setting up of a Reserve Board for credit unions in New South Wales.
RG: No, I don’t think so really.
Was he for that then?
RG: No. He wouldn’t have been for it I would say.
Why not?
RG: Now just a minute while I think.
We are talking about 1978 now. It was 1978 when the Reserve Bank was set up. Father Gallagher went on the delegations.
RG: Well he would have tried to make it reasonable. But see it was never, in its original state, it was not supposed to be the big brother that it turned out to be. I think if you look up the original legislation it was supposed to protect member’s money. I don’t think it was necessary. What he would have said was that they should be able to manage their own affairs. As he used to say, owners own profits and well as losses. I mean even if they do lose in some of these things, it can be a very learning experience for them to work their way out of it. The old idea of a business was, if you lost, like an ordinary outside business a shop or something, running a general store, you loose this year, but next year you learn not to lose. You could work your way out of it. That used to be the way they would talk, the accountants and that, you would work your way out of a loss. But nowadays if you lose, good gracious, you might as well shut up. It is a terrible thing if you lose. You must be making profits and good profit every year and this was what the Reserve Board’s theory was and you had to be getting bigger at a certain rate all the time. His fight came a bit later actually when it began to show what it was. The Reserve Board became a real controlling thing and you didn’t realise it at the time, on the backs of our Directors. But he did work hard to save the credit unions. We worked very hard to save the credit unions, but looking back I see that they set themselves out. It is the same spirit that is in it now. Everything had to be big. Big is beautiful. Like these Directors, well they were all giving their time voluntarily, running these little things. As I say if you have got a small credit union and somebody needs an urgent operation, you haven’t got the money, their friends put it in. They can borrow. They have the dignity of being able to borrow themselves from their own establishment and pay it back. Much better than their friends lending them the money, or giving it to them isn’t it. He fought very hard. The closure of credit unions, them over-stepping the mark, because they certainly did over-step the market, inspectors coming out and influencing the people as to how much better it would be if they were in these bigger ones and to close up and amalgamate. Very small and not growing enough.
You are referring to the Yass one are you?
RG: Like they did to the Yass one, is that what you said? Not only the Yass one, I am referring to quite a number of the others, like Smithfield and Revesby and Padstow, Five Dock. Five Dock was a good credit union but you see they used to have the meetings on somebody’s verandah or rumpus room, I suppose it was. ?????? three days or something like and it is all right but they would be on their backs particularly for not growing big enough.
Do you remember when they took on the Taxation Department?
RG: Oh we won the taxation case yes, we won it. It was over dividends being taxed. I have got the transcript there actually, it is very interesting. Justice McTiernan, he spoke and summed up our credit union, he gave a very good summary of what our credit union really was. It is not only a credit union but it is a mutual aid society. He cited those examples. I think they did use the one that I used about the woman, about the breast cancer, and the Director whose wife helped the other man and that. That goes on all the time, they give advice and they are supposed to go into the loans. Well now here the older members who apply for loans, you know that they understand the principles. But they are supposed to help them. People sometimes don’t borrow enough, they might need a little more. The idea of the credit union is helping people to use their money well and to save it and to only borrow for provident things. The main thing when we first set the credit union up was people being in the hands of money lenders and cash order people. They would spend up to the limit and then they would get another one, never ending. The interest on it was very high. So we used to encourage the people to bring all their commitments in, like the things that they were paying off and that, and to take a loan to cover the lot and then in future to borrow only from their credit union. We straightened a lot of them out. People were often unaware of the high rate of interest that they were paying and the fact that they would never get out of it because it was big business. Well now today I’d say the situation is almost similar, because they are in the hands of Bankcard and those things, all these credit things. They would be a lot better off if they gave them away and used their credit union, particularly the young people. They fall for them very much, they fall for these bankcards and things.
What credit unions did you start personally?
RG: Oh, I had a hand in pretty well all of them, I would say.
You were talking first about the Post Office one that you started?
RG: Yes, I started one in telephones, in the telephone department actually, among the telephonists. It was very good, it was quite good. It eventually amalgamated with the Postal Workers one which is now Communications Credit Union.
What was it called the one you started?
RG: It was called Telephone Officers Credit Union, I think it was. We didn’t count it actually as part of our Movement really. But it was a good experiment and it was a good community to have one in, as a matter of fact, as a work one.
Did you run that one?
RG: I didn’t run it. I think I was on the original Board but I was training other people to run it. They took over. But I was in it certainly.
So is this the first credit union that you ran?
RG: Yes. That I run?
You are Secretary-Manager here are you?
RG: Yes I am the Manager, I am not the Secretary. Well I suppose I had a hand in a lot of them. You see you would help them set their books up.
Did you do that as a job, did you?
RG: No, after hours. I was still working then when all these were being set up. I did it in my free time. I did shift work at that stage so you could go in a morning or afternoon, but mostly night it was. One of us would help, there were others too. Marshall Heiss, he was one of the chief book people and a couple of others, they would help. You had to go and sit with them and show them the different records. You would bring all the records, show them how to fill them in and make sure that they did them and all that. It was really a full-time, part-time job. We didn’t get paid for it. It was all free, we did it free as a community service. Practically all those credit unions I would have had a hand in them, together with other people, setting them up and that.
Now Lidcombe Credit Union here, where you are Manager at the present moment, how long have you been working here?
RG: 1969. I came here in 1969. It is a fair while. About November 1969.
Do you get anybody else to help you here?
RG: Ah yes. The Directors help, they do some of the work. We have had a part-time employee. We don’t have one just at the moment but that is on the cards, somebody coming in casually or part-time a regular half day a week.
Have you gone in for a central banking system within the Antigonish Movement?
RG: No, we haven’t gone in for the central banking.
Nor any of the other co-operative services?
RG: No. No we haven’t gone in for those. In a way we are not big enough I think.
You had a co-operative insurance company at one time didn’t you?
RG: Ah yes. Well it is an agency really. But it was on its way to being, we did have visions perhaps of an insurance company. But it was an agency. We still have the registration but there is not much movement in it at the present time. Insurance has become a pretty tricky business.
What about some of the people that you started off in credit unions that have now branched around all over the place. Can you remember who started here? Some of the people who started here and went on to found other credit unions?
RG: Ah well there was Maurie Banbury, there was Dermot Ryan, he started the Municipal Employees I think wasn’t it?
No it was called the City Council.
RG: City Council that’s right. Now who else was there?
Peter Cox.
RG: Yes, Peter Cox.
Motor Transport.
RG: Motor Transport. Now there was some of them from Revesby went. I think there was a fellow from the Taxation Department was somebody there, the Commonwealth Bank, they were people from Revesby. I think Ken Franklin and a fellow by the name of Devine, they helped with the Taxation. Now who else was there?
There was Pat Hallorahan, Social Security. He helped to start the Social Security Officers Credit Union.
RG: Now where was he from? He was Revesby I think. Was he from here? You know more about it than I do. I know the name.
I am trying to get other names from you. You have mentioned two already that I didn’t know about. That is Devine, what was his first name?
RG: Ted I think it was. You would have to check on that but I think it was Ted. There was the Taxation Department one and Commonwealth Bank. Ken Franklin I think helped with that. You see what they did, in starting those, it might not be so easy to start them these days, but the ones who had had contact with our credit unions would be able to help the discussions in the lunch hour and so on and generate enthusiasm for them. That is what would have happened in a lot of these places of employment.
I notice there that Bill Eagen was at your inaugural meeting.
RG: Yes, he probably was. Now Bill Eagen?
Universal and then Hibernian.
RG: Hibernian, that must have started then I think.
Universal first. Then Hibernian. He was Manager of Hibernian later on.
RG: Was he. Yes the Universal first, yes.
Were you involved with the Co-operative Association?
RG: No. Not really.
Why not?
RG: With the Co-operative Association? Which one do you mean, like our wholesalers?
No the Co-operative Association of New South Wales, and now it is all over Australia.
RG: Well we have some contact with it actually, but we are not actually members at the moment. But we do have some contact with it. I know Jim Mainwaring is working with them at the present time and we know him pretty well.
Do you know why Father Gallagher didn’t get involved with them?
RG: Why he didn’t get involved with them? Well he was always interested in what they did, but I mean as I say it was a different concept from the one that he was working on, that is why. It is a different concept that they have. This latest co-operative development thing that they have got at the present, that is fairly new though.
There was one going way back in the 1940s, 1950s.
RG: That’s right, but isn’t this a new one at the present time? A new development here now. No we had enough to do with our own you know. We had enough to do looking after our own. I don’t know, maybe we could have looked after them a bit better to shepherd them in perhaps, I don’t know.
Are you the only Antigonish credit union left now, the Lidcombe one? Or are there other ones?
RG: I think we would be the only one. We have taken in Revesby and Smithfield and Padstow. Barellan, we did start Barellan but it has now gone in with Punchbowl. We worked together with Punchbowl early on. Punchbowl actually sprang from Universal. Asquith, it has been going until recently, but I haven’t been in touch with them since Fincom came. I would say we are the only one left now at the present time, yes, Lidcombe. I think there is one down the south coast that we started.
We haven’t got one from the south coast there in that chart you have there.
RG: No it is not there. It might have come after that I think. I understand it is still going though. A little place, it is not a real big one.
The Bega one is still going I think.
RG: Well Bega and the town near it, it is not Cobargo it is another town there, I can’t think of it. Ken Franklin went down there and spent a week with them when they were setting it up.
Well you must have put half your life into these credit unions and co-operatives.
RG: Half my life with credit unions, that would be right. More than half my life.
Any regrets?
RG: No, not at all. I don’t regret it, no. It was what I felt I should do at the time and I did it. I think a lot of people have benefited from it. You can’t measure the good that comes out of these community things. But when you think of all the discussions that have been held, the seminars that we have had and all the lectures and one thing and another, it has to have had some effect on the people that we dealt with. As I say we served certainly more than a generation of people, because of the children and their children, gone to the third generation and some of them are still members.
End Tape 1B: 4218 Words: 1 hour 40 minutes.