Building a Better Australia – 50+ Stories of Co-operation

Created in 2012 to celebrate the International Year of Co-operatives, the coffee-table book features 50 case studies from around Australia. Download and read Building a Better Australia – 50+ Stories of Co-operation.

Introduction – a short history of co-operatives in Australia

By Greg Patmore, Professor of Business and Labour History and director of the Business and Labour History Group and the Co-operative Research Group in the School of Business, The University of Sydney

This publication highlights the significant role that co-operatives continue to play in the economic and social life of Australia.

Co-operatives have had a presence in the Australian economic and social landscape since the 1850s in a variety of forms including agricultural co-operatives, building societies, credit unions, worker co-operatives and consumer co-operatives. The first registered Rochdale consumer co-operative in Australia was in Brisbane in 1859, before the separation of Queensland from New South Wales and barely 15 years after the foundation of the original Rochdale consumer co-operative in the UK. There was an Australian representative at the first meeting of the International Co-operative Alliance, the international body representing co-operatives, in London in 1895.

One of Australia’s longest surviving Rochdale consumer co-ops opened for business in Adelaide in 1868 and successfully traded for almost 100 years. Consumer co-operatives in New South Wales even formed their own Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) in 1912 to provide the co-operative retailers with goods.

Although co-operative retailers faced a decline in the post-war period, with the demise of the CWS in 1979, they were an important part of people’s lives in regional Australia, particularly in coal-mining and rural areas. They continue to play a role in maintaining the economic vitality of regional communities in a number of locations, including the Barossa Valley of South Australia, where the thriving Barossa Community Store in Nuriootpa was formed in 1944 following the sale of the store to the local community, which decided to run it on co-operative lines. This co-operative built and operates a shopping mall. There are also co-operative wholesalers for occupations such as butchers, plumbers and hairdressers.

The impetus for credit unions in Australia dates back to the passage of the NSW Small Loans Facilities Act in 1941. The first registered credit union – the Homeowner’s Co-operative Credit Society Limited – was established in May 1945. The credit unions remain perhaps the most vigorous form of co-operatives in Australia and have been through a process of amalgamation in recent years to take advantage of new technologies and to remain competitive with the non-co-op banking sector. Credit unions and building societies were recently recognised by the Federal Government as important institutions in ensuring competition in the Australian financial sector and providing a viable alternative to the four major banks, especially in light of the recent Global Financial Crisis.

Agricultural co-operatives have played a crucial role in rural Australia in assisting primary producers in the processing and marketing of their commodities. The earliest of these co-operatives emerged in the dairy industry on the New South Wales coast in the 1880s to remove ‘middle men’ and improve returns for farmers.

The top two co-operatives in Australia in 2009 were agricultural co-operatives with an annual turnover in terms of two billion dollars – Murray Goulburn in Victoria and Co-operative Bulk Handling in Western Australia. Other examples include the Mount Barker Cooperative in Western Australia, which was established in 1918 and was initially concerned with serving the interests of fruit growers with the provision of a packing shed. It built and operated a power station from 1929 to 1934 and entered the retail trade in 1934 when it took over a struggling local store. Fishing co-operatives continue to play an important role in many coastal communities.

Co-operatives have also shown a strong interest in the sustainability of Indigenous communities. Co-operatives supported the first wave of the aboriginal co-operative movement of the 1950s and 1960s with a significant legacy being the Tranby Aboriginal College in Sydney, Australia’s oldest Indigenous educational provider, which was founded in 1958. Currently, Indigenous co-operatives provide a range of services to Indigenous communities including medical services in Sydney and a credit union in the Northern Territory.

Co-operatives in Australia have even changed their form to match changes in local conditions. The Macleay Co-operative on the midnorth coast of New South Wales, founded in 1905, began as a dairy co-operative with a butter factory and now focuses on retailing.

Co-operatives continue to be seen as a way of meeting economic and social challenges. Hepburn Wind, which was established in 2007, runs Australia’s first community-owned co-operative wind farm and boosts Australia’s sources of renewable energy.

In 2009, residents of Dangar Island in the Hawkesbury River in NSW formed a co-op to run a general store and café. The International Year of the Co-operatives and concerns about the concentration of ownership in the supermarket sector has inspired the reforming of a co-operative wholesaler in NSW. In March 2012, a new wholesaling group, the Co-operative Food Group, was formed in Hexham, New South Wales, on a co-operative basis to assist small retailers and co-operatives.

Overall, as this book highlights, co-operatives continue to play an important role in many aspects of Australian’s lives. They remain an important solution to many of the economic and social challenges facing Australia in the early twenty-first century, particularly at the community level.

Download and read Building a Better Australia – 50+ Stories of Co-operation.