CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

After spending the last couple years leaning on a shovel, local Betoota Heights man Keiran Smithers (30) says it’s always good to up-skill when you start seeing work slow down a bit.

Keiran says it’ll be hard finding a pay packet as fat as what he’s gotten used to as an NBN contractor pushing himself as little as possible digging trenches with a team of 30.

“Before that it was the pink batts under Kevin. That was a cash cow… ” he says.

“When you throw the $900 stimulus package on top of it… Well that’s the reason I never got a trade or went to uni”

However, as the $50 billion roll-out of the National Broadband Network looks to have almost completely saturated the Betoota township with a lacklustre standard of internet – Keiran needs to start thinking about where his next extortionate government funded salary is coming from.

While he’s heard whispers of another dingo fence on the NT/QLD border, Keiran is hedging his bets to get in on the gloriously exploitable National Disability Insurance Scheme.

“I can push a wheelchair” says Keiran.

“Piece of piss. Either that, or I’ll start flogging off second-hand maxi-taxis.”

“But I should probably get in on that gravy train before the Royal Commission”

“Hahahaha”

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