Spatial industry body SSSI is to raise concerns in Canberra that the proposed national broadband rollout will interfere with the cadastral survey.

SSSI president Jonathan Saxon told the Victorian Surveying and Spatial Summit 2010 this week that he would be writing a letter to Malcolm Turnbull, recently appointed by Tony Abbott to spearhead opposition to Labor’s broadband rollout plan.

Labor plans to continue the AUD 43bn scheme now that it has been re-elected, and recently completed the first stage of the rollout in Tasmania.

But the SSSI has concerns that the construction work required to install the cables will disturb geodetic marks used by the spatial industries.

“We have a problem with the national broadband rollout,” said Saxon. “Putting it on poles shoudn’t bother us, but trenching it in the streets should – it interferes with the cadastral survey.”

“We want [the government] to acknowledge that there’s infrastructure there, and hopefully we want to work with them to do something about the problem of disturbing it,” said Saxon.