When it comes to the Moree Bypass, State Member for Barwon Kevin Humphries and Annie’s Bakery owner Mick Colless have agreed to disagree - repeatedly.
The two have sparred over the contamination issue that had been holding up construction of the Moree Bypass, and Mr Humphries’ offer to meet with Mr Colless to discuss how the building of the interim bypass will affect his business.
After meeting the NSW Minister for Roads, David Borger, in Sydney last Wednesday, Mr Humphries reported that the contamination issue had been “resolved”.
However, Mr Colless refused to accept that, saying that the issue had actually been resolved in 2009, pointing to the absence of work around Gosport Street as proof.
“There haven’t been any trucks down there moving [decontaminated] soil in 2010.”
Mr Humphries, though, countered that resolving the problem had had nothing to do with removing decontaminated soil.
He said that the issue had been getting NSW Treasury to accept responsibility for the cleanup, and for an agreement to be reached by the affected parties - Shell, Mobil, RailCorp and the Roads and Traffic Authority.
He said that that has now been done, allowing work on the southern section of the Moree Bypass to recommence.
Mr Humphries and Mr Colless have also clashed over the building of the interim bypass, which Mr Colless said will force him to temporarily shut his bakery.
Mr Colless reacted sceptically when Mr Humphries offered to discuss harm minimisation strategies with him, saying that there was no point, “because the RTA have already decided what they’re going to do”.
In reply, Mr Humphries said: “No one has seen the scope of works yet - all I know is that work is beginning in November.”
But when pressed on whether he would be willing to countenance changes to the interim bypass plan, Mr Humphries said, “I’m not going to discuss that publicly.”
And he was dismissive of Mr Colless’ suggestion that any meeting between the pair occur publicly, in the interest of transparency.
“I just think that’s stupid. Why would you do that? There’s a community liaison group - they can work through that if they want to.”
Another point of contention was Mr Humphries’ claim that while the businesses along the interim bypass route would suffer during construction, they would enjoy “a significant boost post the opening, because they will have much more passing traffic”.
That caused Mr Colless to reply: “There’s no proof of that. That’s only one man’s opinion.”
Mr Humphries hit back: “It’s not my opinion. It’s the opinion of most businesses along there, I would say. History would say that’s a fact. When you’ve got more passing traffic, it’s a no-brainer.”
He also accused Mr Colless of failing to see the bigger picture.
“The problem Mick’s got is that he hasn’t been part of the project the whole of the way. He only gets little bits of information.”
He said that while he had been working hard to get the best result for Moree, Mr Colless was wrong to hold him responsible for every single detail of the Moree Bypass.
“The project has been a hard one - I don’t deny that. But I’m not the project manager.”
And Mr Humphries was critical of Mr Colless’ ongoing commentary, which he called “naïve and ill-advised”, as well as his combative approach.
“I’m not interesting in getting into some sort of public slanging match for the sake of giving someone a headline.”
Email a friend