With the tax season almost upon us, here’s a reminder to be careful with your tax return because a century ago for one Ipswich man it blew up into a Royal Commission. I told a version of this story live on Ipswich’s West Bremer Radio.

Back in the early twentieth century, the New Zealander Mr Duncan Saxelby was a prominent member of the Butter Factory Managers’ Association and general manager of Ipswich’s Queensland Farmers’ Co-operative Association Limited.

The Queensland Farmers’ Co‑operative Association (QFCA) was founded in 1899 with its main butter factory at Booval, Ipswich, and through various mergers became part of Dairy Farmers in 1996.

In 1908, the board of the QFCA met at Ipswich, and from thirty-five applications from across Australia, unanimously selected Duncan Saxelby to be its new general manager. When he moved from Victoria to Ipswich to take up the job, the co-operative’s main factory was in Booval, with others at the surrounding Laidley, Grantham and Boonah.

Saxelby had a seemingly perfectly civil life, the only transgression being a ten-shilling traffic fine in 1925. In 1938, Saxelby retired after twenty-nine years as general manager of the co-operative with a record second to none, having grown the QFCA beyond recognition.

Years later when he was approaching his eightieth birthday, Saxelby was welcomed back to the annual general meeting in the Ipswich Town Hall to great applause. But his twenty-nine years in charge were sadly in danger of being overshadowed by a scandal that made headlines around Australia.

In 1934, the Royal Commission into the Dairy Industry was set-up by the Queensland Government to investigate allegations of secret commissions and corrupt practices within the state’s butter and dairy co‑operatives. Rumours had circulated for years, and the Great Depression intensified scrutiny. Farmers were getting really low prices for cream, and any suspicion that factory managers were skimming off the top at farmers’ expense was politically explosive.

The Commission didn’t uncover widespread criminal corruption, but it did find secret commissions had been paid and co‑operative boards often had poor financial controls.

Among the findings was that a payment of £1,500 to the politician Harry Walker was a secret payment relating to the contract for the Gympie Butter Factory. Walker was somewhat of a character, being a member of parliament for forty years who changed party at almost every election. But it appears he was never charged or convicted of anything.

Ipswich’s Duncan Saxelby, on the other hand, was implicated over a relatively small amount, and just like Al Capone, he was done for tax evasion. Saxelby was charged with understating his taxable income by £259 in the 1926-27 year and it was said by £569 over a five-year period.

The QFCA had called tenders for a factory at Grantham and the earthmoving and machinery contracting firm Waugh and Josephson was successful. That company had a habit of quietly making executive donations and gave a cash gift of £125 to Saxelby in relation to a contract at Grantham, asking him to keep it a private matter. Saxelby was convicted of accepting a secret payment and fined £20. The Taxation Department then had Saxelby convicted of lodging a false tax return and doubled the tax payable from £12 2s 4d to £24 4s 8d.

A son Allan Saxelby became a pig expert and was appointed as chief pig officer to the Queensland British Food Corporation, which later collapsed in one of Queensland’s most spectacular postwar agricultural failures. A nephew Clive Saxelby in the Second World War was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and became a POW after his bomber was bombed midair by his own squadron.

Mr Duncan Saxelby passed away in 1955. Today he’s commemorated at the Mount Thompson Memorial Gardens in Holland Park, Brisbane, and should be a perpetual reminder to not mess with the taxation office.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD ON WEST BREMER RADIO.

Photo credits:
The Butter Boss and the Taxman – Harold Peacock with Copilot.
Duncan Saxelby Ipswich, 1930s – Picture Ipswich.
Queensland Farmers’ Co-operative Association factory at Boonah – Queensland Times, Ipswich, 5th June 1937 page 13, repaired with Copilot.
Hon. Harry Frederick Walker, Minister for Agriculture and Stock – Queensland State Archives.
Queensland Farmers’ Co-operative Association factory at Grantham – Queensland Country Life, 1st January 1948, page 5, repaired with Copilot.
Duncan Saxelby, Mount Thompson Memorial Gardens, Holland Park, Brisbane – Shane 2023, Find a Grave website.