Labor said in a statement that the company had missed 157,268 technicians' appointments in the financial year 2017-18, with the number blowing out from the 80,000 that were said to have occurred between July 2017 and March 2018.

Shadow Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said in a statement it was unclear how the number of missed appointments had surged in the space of three months.

“If [Communications Minister] Mitch Fifield had been more focused on NBN consumers and less focused on installing [Home Affairs Minister] Peter Dutton as Prime Minister, we would not have this situation,” Rowland said, referring to a leadership bid by Dutton against then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

“A Shorten Labor Government will establish an NBN Service Guarantee to improve the incentives for NBN to improve fault rectification timeframes and reduce missed appointments.

“Less downtime, greater accountability and fewer missed appointments – that is what consumers deserve and what Labor wants to achieve.”

Labor announced the plan for an NBN Service Guarantee in June last year, to set standards for fixing faults, installations and missed appointments.

In Monday's statement, Labor said alongside the blowout in missed appointment numbers, NBN Co had dropped its Customer Experience Metric from their latest Corporate Plan, after Senate Scrutiny revealed it had dropped from 7.2 to 6.5.