Now for my next trick making the NRMA disappear

If Ross Turnbull were a road service mechanic, instead of the NRMA president, he'd be the type to say ``your car will be going again in a tick" even before he'd lifted the bonnet.

There's a burly confidence to him. He slaps backs, shakes hands and looks straight at you like a country politician out on the stump. But a big question remains unanswered: has Turnbull got what it takes?

This week he got his way, winning control of the NRMA with a new board and promising a clean slate. He's on about ``the future", ``moving forward" and ``getting on with it."

``All my friends have said that I am absolutely mad to get involved but I read a book about the mountaineer George Mallory who must have been an amazing person. When they asked him why did he want to climb, he said `because it is there'. I am trying to do the right thing for the right reasons but also because it is there."

Mr Turnbull says he wants to run the NRMA according to ``the highest principles of corporate governance" and to keep it out of the headlines.

``We will disappear from the radar. We will not be in the media. There will be no press releases, no comments from me. What we want to do is disappear from the screens and concentrate on making our road service the best in the world."

Mr Turnbull also wants to reduce the size of the board to seven, fix the NRMA's $24 million loss by cutting costs, settle the lawsuits against journalists begun during the presidency of Nick Whitlam, leakproof the management and lobby for laws making it harder for members to initiate general meetings.

He's given himself a year to implement the plans.``I know that it may not all happen this year, but that is my goal."

In his office yesterday, Turnbull seemed still to be settling in. His walls were unadorned and there were no books, no pictures of his partner, the publisher Jaqui Lane, no trace of his four children aged 32, 31, 24 and 9, no snapshot from his Newcastle childhood or sports trophies scattered about.

On his writing pad in big black letters were two paragraphs, a statement he'd penned about the retired politicians Ted Mack and John Hatton, who dispute the board election and challenge Mr Turnbull's mandate.

As he cast his eyes down a nose badly nicked at the nostril during a morning accident with his razor, Mr Turnbull read from the pad.

``They said they would have won but for my dodgy proxies. I say a proxy is a vote and over 70,000 members gave me their proxy to vote on their behalf. They made a conscious decision to give me their proxy. I am humbled by their faith in me. It wasn't a rort, it was a rout."

He said that Mr Hatton and Mr Mack, who both ran for the board and spoke at the disorderly annual general meeting last Tuesday, were beaten fairly. ``When I played sport and lost, you accepted it in good grace,"Mr Turnbull said.

``There has been one election too many. As was shown last Tuesday, those people are out of step with the membership."

He steeled himself for the 10-hour shouting match by going for a long walk in the morning and practising his speech backstage at the Sydney Entertainment Centre the night before. To test his concentration he got his nine-year-old son to stand and loudly heckle him. It felt like being at a grand final, he said.

Mr Turnbull, a former Wallaby, has crafted a board in his own image. Six of the 14 are known for their tight connections to sport.

The board's shallow corporate record is already being noted in the Sydney business community and Turnbull himself is an unknown quantity, having only joined the board last October.

He doesn't concede the lack of expertise, instead praising the team qualities of the board, but says that with 14 members, it is too big. ``I would think nine or even seven would be a better number."

Asked whether any of them had felt like chickening-out after the spectacle of Tuesday's meeting, he laughed and said that it had strengthened their resolve.

``This is the character and quality that we've got with this board. There is a certain sport involvement here but they've all been to the grand final or to Test matches. It is not an easy task to prepare for these sorts of things but they have done that successfully and they are highly successful business people."

Of his own skills, he says he was a solicitor who became a property developer. He was involved in managing a group of companies called the Ross Turnbull Group that was involved in deals including the Tuggerah Business Park, the residential subdivision of Glenmore Park, a development at Menai and had business ventures in Queensland, he said.

In turning around the NRMA, he would draw on his own experience after the 1992 property crash. ``I was in control of a huge corporation and we had to cut costs to survive and work our way through so as we could pay the banks back. A lot of people left the country or went bankrupt but I stayed with my group.

``When that sort of stuff happens you really have to tighten a belt and we did that and survived. I wouldn't want to go it again personally, but we did it."