ABSTRACT
It is not often that a lecture is interrupted by an announcement that a bank run is taking place, but this is what happened to me on a Thursday morning in October 1974 at the University of Adelaide. When the message from Geoff Harcourt arrived, I hurriedly disbanded the class – appropriately enough one in monetary economics – and the Economics Department trooped up en masse to the city centre to see what was going on. There was quite a hullabaloo, although that was as much from the hundreds of onlookers as from those taking out money. For the most part, those withdrawing funds from the Hindmarsh Building Society were queued in an orderly fashion – Australians also know how to queue – and in that respect, it was a run rather than a panic. Nevertheless, the queue of withdrawing customers stretched for more than a block and numbers seemed to be building up fast. Matters came to a head when the colourful and talented Labor Premier, Don Dunstan, arrived on the scene equipped with loud-hailer to assure people that their money was safe and that the building society was backed by the state government. Mob psychology being what it is, most of the crowd then dissipated, somewhat shamefacedly.
