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- 11 March 2004
NRMA Member Services
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Page: 7124
The Hon. PETER PRIMROSE [5.13 p.m.]: More than 400 road service patrol officers have just voted unanimously to petition for a general meeting of NRMA members to discuss the company's plans to reduce member services. I must declare an interest here. I have been a member of the NRMA for around 25 years. Like most of the people who join the NRMA, I do not know much about cars. Since I spend so much time away from home, it is a great comfort for me to know that if my wife and young son break down on the side of the road in the middle of the night, one of the NRMA's white knights will be there to rescue them. In fact, an NRMA patrol officer almost delivered my son when, at around midnight a couple of days before he was born, my wife, Jan, got a flat tyre in a back street of Blacktown.
So, like most other members, I do not mind the fact that the NRMA has recently doubled its road service membership fees. We are prepared to pay that fee because we believe that the service we receive from the road service patrols makes the fees worthwhile. The patrol officers we are paying for are all experienced and fully qualified mechanics who, as the NRMA management will proudly tell us, have a 94 per cent success rate in getting cars back on the road when they are called out.
The problem for me as a member of the NRMA is that I might not be paying for the white knights that I am used to. I recently discovered that the NRMA plans to eliminate at least 100 road service patrols. It also plans to replace the current patrol officers with contractors, who may or may not be qualified tradespeople. So, despite the increased fees, not only will there be fewer patrols but the remaining patrols will not necessarily be qualified tradespeople but, rather, contractors with limited skills, all on individual contracts.
Members will recall that I have raised in this House on previous occasions the issue of individual contracts. Individual contracts are encouraged by the Federal Government to force people in this State to work under inferior wages and conditions, with no long-term job security. So why would the NRMA jeopardise its best asset: its road service patrol officers? And how does it justify making such a fundamental change to member services without any consultation with the members who are expected to continue to pay increasing fees?
Last week the road service patrol officers voted unanimously to call for a general meeting of NRMA members so they could inform the membership of management's plans, and allow a democratic discussion and decision about the future direction of the NRMA. What was the response of the NRMA management? Did it offer to sit down and talk to the patrol officers about the issue? Did it offer to provide an information update to its members, using its media liaison unit and member newsletter? No. The response of the NRMA management was to tell the patrol officers that it intended to apply to the Industrial Relations Commission to immediately terminate the patrol officers' agreement, stripping away all their conditions, and return to the basic metals award. This is the reward that the NRMA management gives to its major asset, the white knights of its advertising campaigns, the major reason that so many people join the NRMA and are prepared to hand over their rapidly increasing membership fees.
Why does the NRMA management refuse to consult with its members? Does it have something to hide? Members of the NRMA who are paying rapidly increasing fees have a right to know what is planned for the roadside patrol service. What else is the NRMA management planning to do to its members without telling them? I urge the NRMA management to resolve its industrial dispute with its patrol officers, and to ensure that its members are fully informed of any changes that are likely to affect member services.
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