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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-03 Daily Xml
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Royal Automobile Association

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:57): I would like to talk about the wider implications of intrusions, both small and large, into democracy. Democracy is a fragile thing. There are numerous examples of the big global challenges to democracy—for instance, in Hong Kong and Myanmar—not only in the broad political form but also in the way it is translated in both public and private institutions. We here in Australia are not as immune from these forces being raged upon us as we may first think.

While of course not immediately comparable with the more extreme international renditions of antidemocratic forces, here in South Australia we need to look no further for a potted example of such antidemocratic and corporate forces than towards an iconic institution like the RAA—the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia—and I quote from Stuart Nicol's history Rebel on Wheels from 2003. South Australia's motor history started when the first motorised tricycle arrived in 1898. The RAA itself was born in 1903, with a foundation membership of 20. In 1905, there were 120 cars in South Australia and, by 1907, 429 cars, with 150 members of the RAA.

At one stage, I am informed, the RAA was one of the largest organisations of its kind in the world and held in enormously high regard by all South Australians. The RAA has moved from its initial long-revered service provision in roadside assistance, roadside signs, maps for holidays and recommendations for holiday accommodation as well as car crash repairs and insurance. It moved early and seamlessly into international travel and is now well presented in all kinds of insurance, personal loans, trade assist and solar and battery storage programs.

The RAA's recent departure from providing home security monitoring has been brought to my attention because people who thought they were supporting an iconic South Australian company and South Australian jobs find they are now supporting jobs that seem to have been outsourced to a company run in Victoria and owned by a firm in the United States of America.

After interaction with the RAA over the recent Fuel Watch Bill I began to look closer at the RAA after approaches by several constituents. This led to questions being raised in their Zoom AGM, and now there will be a general meeting of members held on Monday 29 March at 1.30pm at the West Adelaide Football Club in Richmond.

A look at the proposed changes the RAA board wants reveals the trajectory of the RAA towards a much more corporate-focused organisation, leaving its democratic tradition of a completely RAA member-elected board behind. Contained in the RAA omnibus of constitutional changes are significant reductions in the ability of RAA members to democratically elect board members.

The RAA board wants to be granted the right to directly appoint up to three of the nine directors without being directly elected by RAA members and without being required to be eligible RAA members. It is true the board can currently appoint a director for a casual vacancy but, under the current constitution, that director would have to face election at the end of their term of office and has to be an eligible member.

More concerning are the proposed changes to the RAA constitution which, in part, allow the RAA to decide who is a fit and proper person to receive RAA board endorsement in an election for a board position. The RAA board, through its proposed nominations committee, would design, construct and implement the total process of filtering potential RAA member nominations for RAA board endorsement and decide, with its own means, who is worthy of endorsement by the RAA board. That endorsement criteria is not then compulsorily made public. Again, worryingly, the proposed omnibus changes, if passed, would also allow for the extension of the RAA board president's tenure to increase to five years.

There is a further constitutional change proposed about communications to RAA members, substituting printed material for electronic material. While this may seem a quite benign change and one that seemingly fits into the 21st century landscape, it has the potential to create a further democratic impediment to RAA board information and documents being accessed by members who do not have, or who cannot have, for many reasons, access to electronic communications.

These types of changes to democratic processes, whether in the political sphere or company boardrooms, have far greater implications to the lives of South Australians than might at first be imagined. How do we, as citizens, make change to improve our everyday lives if the mechanisms in society that grant us that ability are truncated and put into the hands of a few? I would argue the RAA's proposed changes to the club's constitution do just that, and that we, as RAA members and more broadly, will be democratically worse off as a result.

I urge all RAA members to read the proposed changes posted to them and which I received on 1 March. If you have friends and family who are RAA members, I urge you to discuss with them the forthcoming meeting and the direction the RAA is being taken in. Could this move see more of the RAA's employments be outsourced? This would just mean a reduction in the entitlements and conditions of employment and the service that RAA members enjoy.

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