Newspaper article on the inner workings of the NRMA

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Adrian E
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Postby Adrian E » 09 Aug 2008, 09:33

From today's SMH.


Secrets under the hood
Date: August 9 2008
Matthew Moore
Sydney Morning Herald - 09 August 2008, Sydney Morning Herald - 09 August 2008 http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/08/ ... 74490.html

If you think it is only government departments that have secrecy and spin as the core principles in their mission statements, take a look at the country's biggest motoring organisation, the NRMA.

To understand how it operates, go back to January when its president, Alan Evans, called on the State Government to ditch plans for a cycleway on Epping Road.

Evans issued a press statement headlined, "NRMA plan for Epping Road: Don't bump motorists for bikes". It said the NSW Government was wasting $7.6 million on the Epping Road bike path even though only 25 cyclists used it daily.

Instead of wasting $300,000 a cyclist, the Government should widen the road to make more room for cars and trucks, it said. In the news vacuum that is often part of a Sydney summer, Evans's punchy comments got page one treatment in the papers, which mentioned the full NRMA case was set out in a submission to the Roads and Traffic Authority. One NRMA member and cyclist, Nigel Withers, thought he would like to read that submission and tried to get hold of it.

When he couldn't find it on the NRMA website, he wrote to Evans asking for a copy. Evans replied on January 16 but would not hand over the submission. He offered this laughable excuse: "NRMA's submission to the RTA is now an internal departmental document." Withers wrote back, but this time was ignored. Undeterred, he tried the NRMA's Open Road magazine, explaining he had twice asked Evans for the submission without success. "Perhaps Open Road could print the submission in question," he wrote optimistically. Not likely.

The editor-in-chief of Open Road, David Naylor, replied on February 8, telling him his letter had been passed to the head of "government relations and public policy". Nothing came back, so Withers changed tack.

In May he submitted a freedom-of-information request to the Roads and Traffic Authority seeking a copy of "the NRMA submissions regarding bikeways on Epping Road". At least the RTA replied, even if it was not what he expected: "There are no documents relating to your request," they said.

How could there be no submission when the NRMA president had released a summary of it and confirmed in writing there was one?

This week I rang the the NRMA's PR team to find out and got the Withers treatment. For days they promised to send me a copy but it never arrived. Still, the excuses were diverting: "We genuinely did not know what submission you were talking about . The guys who wrote the submission were in the country . Our guys were not back in 'til yesterday . "

Finally, the NRMA admitted the RTA was right. There is no submission. The closest thing is a three-page document sent to the RTA in August 2006, 17 months before that press release about useless cycleways.

We still haven't seen that three-page document. Nor have we seen the survey of bike-lane usage the NRMA now says was done many months after the 2006 submission.

If the NRMA expects to be taken seriously, it should adopt the levels of transparency demanded of government. If it is going to quote from "surveys", it should post survey reports online to be scrutinised. The same goes for so-called submissions. An organisation this size should not be relying on misleading press statements alone to influence public debates.

Matthew Moore is the Herald's freedom-of-information editor. Tell him your FoI successes and failures at foi@smh.com.au.

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SuzieSpiro
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Postby SuzieSpiro » 09 Aug 2008, 17:34

Thanks Adrian - yes read this today. Alan Evans is such a muppet. Why let the facts get in the way of a good media opportunity?!

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mikesbytes
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Postby mikesbytes » 09 Aug 2008, 20:49

Despite finishing in the middle of nowhere, the Artarmon portion of the epping cycleway is getting stacks of bikes.

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Postby Jono » 10 Aug 2008, 10:38

NRMA faces uproar over $225,000 in political gifts
Email Printer friendly version Normal font Large font Heath Gilmore and Matthew Benns
August 10, 2008

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THE NRMA Motoring and Services group has been forced to reveal $225,000 in political donations to candidates and parties in the lead-up to the last state election, as it fights to avoid prosecution over its failure to declare the money.

The donations included a host of dinners and drinks as well as $5500 to attend the 2004 NRL grand final with NSW Labor Party politicians, and tens of thousands of dollars to dine with current and former prime ministers and premiers. On Friday a group spokesman declined to answer questions about why the road services group needed to make such donations.

Greens MP and roads spokeswoman Lee Rhiannon said: "As president, Alan Evans must accept responsibility for the group's failure to publicly disclose on time how much money the organisation donated to the Labor and Coalition parties. Mr Evans should explain if the group made a mistake or if there was an attempt to cover up the $225,000 in donations. Either way the law has been broken and Alan Evans needs to accept responsibility."

In 2006 Mr Evans told the annual general meeting that the group believed that "we have an obligation to be involved in the political process in order to advance the interests of our members".

"It is important to note that we do not 'donate' money to political parties. Instead, we purchase tables at political functions and events that are attended by members of parliament at both a state and federal level," he told the meeting.

"Internally we have a set of rules that govern this process, namely that what we give to one side of politics we give to another in order to ensure fairness and that we only attend those events at which there are representatives from the areas of relevance to our members.

"Unfortunately, this is a reality of being involved in the political process today."

But Ms Rhiannon said: "Money given at fundraisers flows into the coffers of the major parties and buys influence just like direct donations. What Mr Evans is admitting to is the potential money brings to bend the ears of MPs at swanky fund-raising events. Who knows whether NRMA members are happy with their money being handed over by Alan Evans to political parties?"

The NSW Crown Solicitor will decide whether the initial failure by the group to declare the donations has breached electoral laws.

The donations controversy threatens to overshadow the group's board elections in September when the votes of up to 1.8 million members will show whether they feel the directors have been spending the group's money wisely. A group spokesman maintained that the failure to declare the donations was inadvertent and three letters from NSW Election Funding Authority were not received or logged.

"The NRMA has no reason to not disclose its political contributions and took steps to ensure its obligation was met," the spokesman said. "All NRMA donations as defined by the state Electoral Funding Authority have now been disclosed and the amount is listed on the EFA website. Penalties are a matter for the authority."

The group's website also carries full details of the directors' fees, which have been criticised by election candidates Ernie Page, a former Carr government minister, and Lorraine Talbot, the wife of campaigner Richard.

Mr Page and Ms Talbot said that the directors were grossly overpaid and questioned the need for payment for their service on the boards of subsidiary companies.

Mr Evans, who joined the board in 2003 and replaced the disgraced Ross Turnbull in 2005 as president, now receives $165,000 for this position. His positions on two subsidiary companies push his fees up to almost $300,000. He receives $86,000 for chairing Kingmill Pty Ltd, which trades as Thrifty Car Rental, and $33,000 for his directorship of holiday company Adventure World Travel Pty Ltd.

A group spokesman said the fees were approved by members at the 2007 annual general meeting and were based on a review by an independent expert.

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Postby Jono » 10 Aug 2008, 10:39



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