Rumney MLC Tony Mulder today drew attention to the plight of a harried constituent and also shed light on why the National Broadband Network rollout is such an expensive impost on the Nation.
Pensioner Irene Davidson of Sorell has been told by the NBN contractors John Holland Constructions that it will cost $25,000 to relocate an NBN metal junction box that has been incorrectly placed on the formal access to her Sorell home.
She currently uses a driveway that runs through the neighbouring property (which is an investment nest egg that she also owns but hopes to sell off).
“Because of the placement error the proper driveway cannot be established which renders the sale of the adjoining block problematic,” Mr Mulder said.
When contacted by Mrs Davidson’s family, John Holland laid blame at the feet of the Sorell Council advising that they had failed to identify the two titles.
Mrs Davidson advises that John Holland had not bothered to consult her before installing the box.
Tony Mulder said this was another example of the failure of common sense that characterizes the massively expensive NBN project.
“It’s astonishing that it will cost $25,000 to shift the junction box – and it’s not even connected yet!” he said. “How many other ‘stuff ups’ have they made that we don’t know about”.
He called on the NBN to immediately instruct it’s contractors to relocate the box at their expense, “A simple check of publicly available titles records would have shown the two titles and told them that the location of the box was on the only available access to one of them” Tony Mulder said.
