Vale Race Mathews

Australian Mutuals Archives was saddened to learn of the passing of Dr Race Mathews, former Victorian and federal politician, labour historian and enthusiastic champion of mutuals and co-operatives.

Dr Mathews had a lifelong interest in fair and democratic ways of doing business, politics and life and that led him to co-ops and mutuals. He was for a time Chair of Waverley Credit Union in Melbourne. He was a member of the Archives’ first incarnation, the Australian Credit Union Historical Co-operative, and he used our archives in the research of his books Jobs of Our Own: Building a Stake-Holder Society and  Of Labour and Liberty: Distributism in Victoria 1891-1966

Last year, Race’s wife Iola Mathews published Race Mathews: a Life in Politics. It’s a fantastic book that was begun by Race as an autobiography but he became too ill to continue. Iola finished it as a biography of Race. Below is an extract from the book about credit unions becoming mutual banks:

In fact, the credit unions valued their mutualist ethos, and instead of demutualising, they amalgamated in order to remain competitive … Then, in 2010, changes to bank policy allowed the big credit unions to apply for a banking license, and nine of them took this step.

According to Graham Loughlin, this was just exchanging one name for another, without altering the credit unions’ constitutions or operations. Credit unions pursued the change in order to secure a marketing advantage, and the perceived benefit of greater security associated with the term ‘bank’ …

These mutual banks were owned by their customer-members instead of shareholders, and the profits were invested back into the business. A study of mutual banks in 2015 concluded that they were doing well financially, had increased their membership, and did not want to demutualise. The researchers said, ‘The dominance of shared goals, shared values and a sense of community are the key features that managers of converting credit unions believe will see customer-owned banks sustainable into the future’.