THE company in charge of building Australia’s high-speed National Broadband Network has splashed out $437,000 in taxpayers’ money on fancy coffees for its 5000 staff.

NBN Co has confirmed it has spent $210,000 on high-end espresso machines — averaging around $5000 each — $145,000 on coffee and $82,000 on machine maintenance.

Among the most popular machines are the $4577 Necta Koro, which “offers excellent, full-bodied espresso at the optimum extraction temperature and exquisite mixed beverages, including a wonderful cappuccino with a long-lasting, creamy top”, and the $5753 Jura Impressa X9, a “luxury machine” with a “cool Nordic style” that “not only has an appealing exterior, but easily fulfils the most sophisticated coffee wishes of customers, guests and colleagues”.

The figures, covering the lifetime of the company since 2009, were revealed in response to questions from Labor senator Catryna Bilyk and reported in The Canberra Times. The coffee spend is believed to dwarf that of other government departments and agencies, most of which do not provide coffee machines for their staff.

In 2012, the Department of Industry spend $120,000 on coffee machines and maintenance, while the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in one instance forked out $15,000 for a single machine.

“Since the establishment of the company, coffee and coffee machines have been purchased by NBN as an amenity for employees, contractors and visitors in order to aid productivity by reducing the time spent by staff purchasing coffee outside their offices,” an NBN Co spokesman told news.com.au.

Senator Bilyk told The Canberra Times it was “no wonder Malcolm Turnbull’s second-rate NBN is years behind schedule”.

“NBN Co is too busy sipping taxpayer-funded lattes to get the job done,” she said. “Instead of delivering the fair dinkum fibre NBN Australians are crying out for, Mr Turnbull is delivering more waste and mismanagement.”

It comes after the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman last week revealed complaints about the NBN more than doubled in the second half of last year. NBN Co blamed the surge in complaints on the rising number of households being connected to the network.

frank.chung@news.com.au