NBN worse than pink batts blue Troy Lancaster with wife Kate and children Amy (6) and Lachlan (15 months) / Pic: Renee Nowytarger Source: The Daily Telegraph SUBCONTRACTING schemes that plagued the pink batts affair are now haunting the NBN, one senior union official said, describing the situation as "the biggest pyramid rort" he had ever seen. Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union national NBN construction and project officer David Mier said the situation was like "the pink batts scheme on steroids," with many working on Telstra sites involved in "layers and layers of subletting." Union contractors including Service Stream and Vision Stream have been skimping 38 per cent off market rates paid to their own subcontractors, leading to short cuts being taken while pits were being dug up. Service Stream and Vision Stream declined to comment last night. Families in Penrith, where the furore first started after a NBN pit was found to contain asbestos, last night said they were being "stonewalled" by Telstra, who had cancelled a planned meeting to address their concerns last night. "We're stuck in a hotel now, the least Telstra can do is clean our houses and carpets and gardens to make sure all asbestos fibres are gone for good," homeowner Troy Lancaster said. But a Telstra spokeswoman said: "We have now received initial test results which will also inform the conversation. Therefore we have postponed tonight's meeting until we are in a position to discuss further. In Canberra, the government accused the opposition of trying to benefit politically from the controversy after a Coalition talking points cheat sheet telling MPs how to spruik their NBN policy was leaked. Opposition MPs were told to talk up its fibre to the node plan, rather than running fibre cables all the way to premises, as spruiked by Labor. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy yesterday attacked reports of some cases, insisting only 0.02 per cent of pits inspected by Telstra since 2010 had found asbestos. Mr Conroy said while Penrith, Seaford and Ballarat were genuine issues connected to the NBN, other cases claimed by the Queensland government and in Western Australia had nothing to do with the rollout or asbestos. I'm not playing it down. Penrith, Seaford ... these are genuine cases," he said. Opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said the rollout had been "super-charged" beyond the normal pace of the industry and this had caused guidelines not to be followed, similar to the disastrous pink batts insulation scheme.