Well before you could convert foreign currency with the touch of a smartphone, there were heavy restrictions on the movement of currency out of Australia.
It’s hard to imagine Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe roaming his Martin Street headquarters with a revolver holstered to his hip.
Across the bank’s almost 190 NSW branches, staff were expected to make loans, look after customers as well as ensuring they passed a “dry, clean flannelette” through the bore of their weapon at least once a month. The Commonwealth absorbed a number of other institutions while it was the nation’s central bank. This included the Government Savings Bank of NSW which itself had absorbed one of the nation’s first banks, Campbell’s Bank that was set up in 1819).
In a letter dated June 27, from a place “near Gaba Tepe”, Smith told Miller of constant bombardments and how he had survived. “My clothing & equipment was perforated in no less than six places. One learns rapidly however, the art of this warfare and does not waste much time in not taking precautions. The main thing is to get underground if you want to live,” he wrote.Smith and others would gratefully receive Miller’s replies.
People as well known as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Katharine Hepburn, Louis Armstrong and even the Harlem Globetrotters are recorded in the archives because they had to move money out of Australia. Jack Graham, secretary of the Theatrical Proprietors’ and Managers’ Association of Australia, wrote to the then labour minister Harold Holt, suggesting Hope be cross-examined about his contract and movement of American dollars.According to Graham, the industry “knew” that Hope would earn far more than $US10,000 on his Australian tour. Somehow, the man known for singing with Bing Crosby was also an involved in the movement of currency around the world.
The bank would reply to both Holt and then treasurer Arthur Fadden that it could find no evidence of Graham’s claims. It examined contracts of overseas performers, in part because of ongoing concerns that American artists in particular appeared to be paid far more in their home country than they were permitted to move out of Australia.A year later, Fadden was dealing with concerns about Danny Kaye.
Bank ledgers have been digitised, enabling the use of the data to track transactions of ordinary Australians during key periods of the nation’s history.
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