The ground outside a house in Wollongong began to sink when contractors drilled through a stormwater pipe trying to connect the national broadband network.
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Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull mentioned the incident at a national infrastructure summit in Sydney on Thursday.
He tagged it as one of the ‘‘run-of-the-mill disasters’’ in delivering the NBN network.
"There was the home in Wollongong where the contractors drilled through the stormwater pipe and the ground began to subside," Mr Turnbull said in his speech.
The incident occurred in November last year, when Woonona man Shawn Moore complained that a contractor damaged the pipe leading into his house and then denied it was damaged.
‘‘So I ended up having to dig the footpath up a week ago, to expose the pipe and the damage,’’ Mr Moore told the Mercury at the time.
‘‘I paid for the materials myself and got some assistance from the contractors.’’
Once Mr Moore had uncovered the pipe, he found a metre-long section of the stormwater pipe had been cut out. That was replaced with a piece of bigger pipe and ‘‘sleeved’’ over the top and held in place with ‘‘a bit of duct tape’’.
The issue has since been resolved.
Mr Turnbull said other ‘‘run-of-the-mill disasters’’ included spending more than $100,000 connecting three residences in Queensland because 300 metres of solid rock was in the way, while it cost up to $25,000 to put 200-metre-long cables into acreage properties in Victoria.
‘‘It is a very, very complex project,’’ he told a national infrastructure summit in Sydney on Thursday.
Despite the challenges, Mr Turnbull said the rollout was in as good a shape as it could be.
But the cost could blow out by a $1 billion if the take-up target misses by around five per cent, or only managing to connect 80 per cent of the number of premises per day needed at the height of the project.
‘‘I can assure you I’m extremely anxious ... but I think we’ve made some very big changes,’’ Mr Turnbull said, pointing to a management shake-up and the end of what he described as a ‘‘glee club culture’’.
He has told NBN Co and his own officials not to even think of telling him ‘‘what you think I want to hear’’.
‘‘I want to know what’s actually going on.’’
NBN Co chief Bill Morrow earlier revealed he speaks to Mr Turnbull every second day about the rollout.
Mr Morrow said as far as the eye can see the company was ‘‘spot on’’ where the government had expected it to be.
‘‘I think we’re on a good road here to success.’’
