BY JESSICA ROUSE

The roll out of the NBN network in the Hunter is still giving Paterson MP Meryl Swanson a headache.

The MP is calling for the Joint Standing Committee on the NBN roll out to visit Paterson and see for themselves the problems residents are experiencing.

Residents have had endless problems with not only the roll out itself, but problems connecting even after their suburb has gone live, complaint handling and blame shifting.

“Residents, businesses, people trying to just live their lives have had a terrible time. They’ve either been taken off the roll out list or their times have been put back considerably. it really has been substandard,” said Meryl Swanson.

Meryl Swanson says the whole project has been a complete “stitch up” and the Prime Minister has completely failed to deliver.





“This government needs to understand and this prime minister needs to understand that his promise that we would have NBN by the end of last year has not been fulfilled and this whole idea that it was going to be faster and cheaper and it was just going to be better has not worked.”

The call to the Joint Standing Committee to visit the region is one of six recommendations Meryl Swanson has made to the Committee.
The inefficient roll out is leaving businesses and families in the lurch, left without the technology they need for work or school, and the Paterson MP says it’s contributing to the Hunter having the poorest digital literacy skills in the country because access to the necessary tools just isn’t possible.

“The hunter is the worst in Australia and that’s dreadful and that’s not because our people aren’t clever, it’s because they don’t have the tools to use the Internet to become more digitally literate, to become more proficient in the digital world you actually need decent service so you can get on and do things,” said Meryl Swanson.