Our turn: Drumming up business

By SIMON COLLINS

A loan from the local credit union has helped a couple in the small Queensland town of Maleny to start a business importing drums. Ziggy and Raquel Deloie borrowed $A8000 ($10,200) from the Maleny and District Community Credit Union (MDCCU) three years ago to buy drums from Raquel's homeland, Brazil.

Gradually they extended the loan to $A26,000, buying drums from Africa as well, and supplying them to music stores throughout Australia. Most of the loan is now paid off.

Because of quarantine regulations, they now import only the shells of drums from Africa and finish them off with Australian goat skins in their Maleny workshop. "We clean them, shave them and tune them," Ziggy Deloie says.

Their business, Samba World Percussion, is just one of dozens of small enterprises that are thriving with the help of the credit union and other cooperatives in Maleny, which boasts the second largest number of cooperatives in the world, after Mondragon in Spain.

"We lend to people on social security who wouldn't get loans elsewhere. That has helped them start up businesses," says credit union public relations officer, Paul Rees.

Local people with savings can see their money used to help others in the community and for environmental projects such as the Landcare tree planting group.

"Previously the banks decided who to lend to," says credit union director Peter Pamment. "Now they [locals] have control of their money."

The credit union does not charge transaction fees, and now has 5000 members and assets of $A13 million in a district with a population of only 6000. Some members have moved away over the years but kept up their membership.

The union lends money for houses, cars and other personal purposes as well as to businesses - but not for projects that would damage the environment.

"We do not lend for V8 cars or land destruction or inappropriate farming techniques, so people who invest money know that their money is not being abused," Pamment says.

Jill Jordan, a former shire councillor who has been a driving force behind the Maleny cooperative movement, says the credit union and the co-ops have helped unemployed people move off benefits and put their business ideas into practice, helping to cut local unemployment from 8 per cent to 3.5 per cent in the early 90s.

There are now several farming co-ops, arts co-ops, a recycling business, a food co-op, a radio station, a bush food business and the Maleny Cooperative Club, which uses a mix of paid staff and volunteers to provide food and drink responsibly as "an alternative to the pub culture."

There's also an enterprise centre run by the Maleny Enterprise Network Association (MENA), which provides computers with internet access and other office facilities and training for fledgling businesses. It is also a district outlet for government agencies, which pay part of the salary of the sole staff member.

"There is a cooperative culture here," Jordan says. "It's people taking responsibility for control of their own destinies."

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