1 HARRY TRIGUBOFF HOWARD: Why did your family choose to come to Australia? I know you were living in China but why did you
2 choose Australia? TRIGUBOFF: We knew that things would change in China. I came before Communists came. They were just starting to take over China at that time. But older foreigners that were living in China, everybody left. Anyone you find today in China has never been there in my time. They all came later. So we all left. So the question was where do you go? Everybody wanted America, that's 100%. Everybody wanted America. America wouldn't take us because they didn't consider us refugees because my parents lived in China for 30 years. The refugees who came from Europe, they got to America but we couldn't. So we all then tried to come to other countries, Canada, Australia, but majority, but many of them the Russian Government told us we could all go back to Russia. They said you can come home. But of course that was the last choice of everyone because once they got to Russia they were told where to go which was not to Moscow, St Petersburg, and they were told to share whatever they had. So nobody wanted
3 to go to Russia, it was a question whether Russia China or better. So everybody then tried, Australia was the major place where we all tried to go. HOWARD: What do you first remember of Australia? TRIGUBOFF: I was standing in Dover Heights and looking down at Bondi Beach and I saw those brown bodies and not one Chinaman. After China I never saw so many people like that. I thought wow, what a place. And then I saw all the red roofs. I never saw so many red roofs in China, as you know it's all concrete. So these are the two things I think I sort of saw. The other interesting thing was my brother and I we came here and we landed in Sydney and we wanted to take a room in a hotel and they showed us you see that pub, well on top of that there are rooms, that's our hotel. We thought Waldorf Astoria. I think these were the things that, very good. HOWARD: You went to university in England and then came
4 back to Australia in about 1960? TRIGUBOFF: Yeah, that's it. HOWARD: And what made you get into building apartments? TRIGUBOFF: Well, I was a graduate of textiles and I came here and I worked in a big firm, Davis Coop, and I realised we had no future because our machines were very old our Labor costs were very high. In those times the Labor costs here and say in Asia were, I don't know, 10 to 1 or something. And our market was very small. So I tried to do my best with them but I couldn't do anything. So they told me here, we'll give you a bigger wage, just leave us alone because what you're talking we're going crazy. I said you're right. We can't do it. So I started to sell houses a bit. There were no units. There was nothing here. And I saw - I learned what you have to do to sell many houses and that was to make it affordable. Just to make a beautiful building is only part of the story, you have to make it affordable. And that's
5 what I started to think of and I realised that apartments was the way to go and I never ever built one cottage, never. I never built offices unless they are under the ground. I only believe in apartments. And I immediately had a big market because just the rent control was at that moment, at that time was taken away and people had to live somewhere and there was nothing on the market. I was among the first to build. So even though I was that small I was very important because there were very few of us and we were very small all of us. It was also a matter of how you build because we only had cottage builders and I took cottage builders and I made them into apartment builders. It's quite a different story. But anyway, there was no Labor, very difficult to get bricklayers, very difficult to get bricks, things that we don't even think of now but in those days it was difficult. But we had lots of people coming from the country. They were leaving. The farmers were leaving their land. It's a big difference. When I came to Scots College in 1948 the farmers were the wealthiest
6 people in the country and here I am in 1963 and they're coming to live in the city. And besides that I had a big market from the English because they were still coming in, the assisted passage. HOWARD: 10 Poms. TRIGUBOFF: Always whinging, they had nothing in England but they knew better here. It's all right. So we had a lot of people that wanted to buy. The problem was the banks. The banks wouldn't give money to women, the banks wouldn't give money to investors, they only wanted to give to men and that's it. So I saw that we were missing out on a big thing and I had very good connections with the ANZ Bank and St George Building Society. So I went to St George Building Society and I said I will now guarantee these loans, you give the money, I guarantee and I gave the money to the women, I gave money to investors, I gave money to men, I gave to everybody. A big proportion of my sales were financed with my guarantees, what set me aside from the other developers, the other builders because they were always running around with the banks. We
7 succeeded and the women paid back and the investors paid back and so we changed the whole system. That was very good. The other interesting thing was that we started not from Sydney out but from the suburbs in we had no code for apartments in the city. We started building in Cronulla and we started building in Dee Why, long before we ever built here in the city. I think eventually it was a blessing because that's why we have big centres, we have Parramatta and we have Chatswood, Hornsby and these big centres sort of dispersed the population, which is what other cities lack. If you come to Melbourne they're all around the city. And I think that that's because they started units from the city out like everybody else. So I think we succeeded very well and this Parramatta is a very great success, especially since we want to develop all the land north and west of Parramatta, this will be very important. So that's how we did it. HOWARD: What was your attitude at the time to the Prime Minister Bob Menzies? What was the mood of the country and
8 the attitude towards him? TRIGUBOFF: Oh, I think I was so busy building I didn't know much but we all enjoyed the speeches, they were wonderful. We admired him. He was like a father figure. It was terrific. And of course his opposition is not the strongest so I think it was, yeah, we all looked forward to listening to him and doing things. I was more involved with Fraser later but Menzies I was so small that I really didn't know much about him but definitely they were - in his time we started to have apartments and this was the big movement. So I came in after him, of course, but that was very important. Nobody else before that thought of that. They thought that people wanted always cottages and apartments would be terrible slums and all that. Slums of the future, which thank God they were wrong and I think he foresaw it, he started it, that's very important. Rent control, that was all in his time. HOWARD: Harry, do you remember as an immigrant to this
9 country ever suffering any prejudice or discrimination? TRIGUBOFF: I never saw anything personally, never, never. And that's one of the great things about the country because if I didn't feel it and others don't feel it either, of course if you look for something you will get it. HOWARD: Of course TRIGUBOFF: But you have to look for it. It's not they show it to you. No, no, no, That's a great thing about this country, it's very good. HOWARD: And if people were prepared to work and become part of the community they were accepted? TRIGUBOFF: Definitely. Definitely. I don't think that people even realise it. You know, I speak to foreign countries and I say they should let in the students, Chinese students very good idea. Oh, they say, "How will the Chinese students mix with the landlady?" So I look out in George Street and I say "Now
10 you see that beautiful Chinese girl, she's walking with that Australian boy, now they're very happy together. So are you telling me that the land lady will not take money from the Chinese boy?" Nonsense. So I mean we take it naturally, it's not that we have to be told that we have to do it. This is a big thing about the country that we absorb everybody as long as they want to be part of the community. I think it's a very important thing. That's why everybody wants to come here. That's why Sydney's such a success. HOWARD: You were somebody that emphasised that housing had to by affordable. Housing was more affordable in the 1960s and '70s than it seems to be now. Why do you think that is so? TRIGUBOFF: Well, we have today attracted, as I'm saying investors. We didn't have investors. '50s, '60s, beginning of '70s there were no investor. The banks wouldn't give them money. They said we don't have money for ordinary people, we don't want to give you money. Now big money has come into it and once the big money comes into it they see the good
11 investment that housing is so it makes it harder for the young ones. Now the young ones have a problem that we take away from them their super funds. They don't have money when they need it. I believe that that money should be released to them for housing if they can. So they miss out on that money. Then people are afraid, you see, we live so long that they don't know how much money they will need. Now I think they shouldn't be afraid because their assets go up. It doesn't have to be housing. Shares go up too. Problem with shares is they go up and down whereas housing is much more level. That's why I don't like shares and as soon as I touch shares I lose money because I don't trust them, I don't know but housing it makes sense. So I think the houses go up in value a lot and they should want to spend that money. It doesn't matter, if his house was worth half a million and now it's worth a million, it doesn't matter if you borrow the 100,000 he will still be better off even though he has lost the full amount of the wealth - of the value of the apartment. That way he will live better too. It doesn't matter that he will have less or more at the end but he
12 should learn to live better and not be afraid to borrow. HOWARD: How important is political stability and continuity for a country? TRIGUBOFF: In my business most important because if people get frightened then they stop spending, they stop buying and this is something we always have to take into account. We never had in Australia big jumps in property values. It's jumped up lately a lot but that's because the interest rates have come down so much. That could be expected when we have investors around the place all the time. But generally what I like is that we don't have jumps and ups and downs. A lot of it depends on the Government. If the Government suddenly raises interest rates it's very difficult. If the Government gradually lowers interest rates or keeps them level it's very, very good. We are mostly involved with government policies in interest rates and also when they are helpful in getting approvals from councils. Unfortunately this is where New South Wales is the only State is weak. It's a sort
13 of problem where the State Government says it's up to the councils and the Federal Government says it's up to the States and we can't seem to get it right but that is now my big ambition to get that right too. But even though we don't get approvals fast enough they still come because they still know that we have to have it. We never have a situation where the Government says we don't want any more building or we want too much building. They keep it at an even keel. That is very, very important for us.