Ministers haul in BOM chief for grilling over $4.1m website fiasco

Australians have lost their faith in the Bureau of Meteorology after its hated website upgrade, the Albanese government has declared, as senior ministers call in the agency’s chief to explain how its $4.1 million project sparked community outrage.

Environment Minister Murray Watt and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said on Wednesday the bureau had lost its social licence because of the website upgrade and demanded urgent changes.

Watt also hauled in the bureau’s acting chief executive, Peter Stone, to demand fixes to the website as soon as possible and briefings expected to be held by Friday with state and territory emergency services ministers. This followed Queensland Premier David Crisafulli’s fury in state parliament on Tuesday, when he blamed the “flawed” website for failing to allow residents of south-east Queensland to be prepared for the weekend’s serious storms.

The bureau’s $4.1 million website has sparked howls of protest across social media since it was launched last week, with many Australians demanding to know the reasons for the changes to the old website, which was viewed 2.6 billion times each year.

Widespread criticisms include the weather radar redesign, which people have claimed is harder to read and less detailed than the old version, which can still be accessed here, raising fears that some may be unprepared for extreme weather events.

Other users argued they are now forced to navigate multiple fields before accessing weather information for a given day.

“The bureau clearly has work to do, in that it has lost community confidence in the new website. Minister Watt has made his expectations clear,” Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said on Wednesday.

Environment Minister Murray Watt said in a statement released on Tuesday night that it was clear the new BOM website was “not meeting many users’ expectations” and encouraged Australians to continue to give the bureau their feedback.

“The BOM website is a critical tool to ensure public safety, particularly during the high-risk weather season and it must deliver the quality information our hardworking BOM staff are known for,” Watt said.

Bureau acting chief executive Dr Peter Stone acknowledged criticisms and conceded that changes were needed to the website, but was confident they could start to be delivered in “in the coming weeks”.

“It’s clear we need to do more to help people through the change, both by making adjustments to the website and by helping users to understand its new features,” Dr Stone said.

Emergency Minister Kristy McBain said the bureau must address concerns about its website, which provided an essential resource during natural disasters.

“It is absolutely crucial that the BOM is able to provide the services that millions of Australians rely on to not just plan their day, but also to stay safe from extreme weather,” McBain said.

Stone also said the site was designed to enhance access to public safety information and listed a number of improvements under the upgrade.

“The bureau’s forecasts and warnings are now more prominent, easily accessible and relevant to your location,” he said.

“It’s important to note that the website radar provides one view of the current weather situation. It is not intended to replicate or replace the Bureau’s weather warnings, which are created by our expert meteorologists and issued ahead of a severe weather event.”

Nationals leader David Littleproud said the website upgrade was “a joke” and that farmers who rely on its forecasting services had been critical of the website for some time.

“The bureau has been littered with errors and mistakes for some years now,” Littleproud told Sky News.

“Their business model is to mess up and ask for more money. And that’s effectively all they’ve done. Whether it was last year when they predicted we’re going to have a drought, a whole lot of farmers offloaded all their livestock and crashed the market.

“And then we had one of the best seasons we’ve ever had, down to just simply managing a website. The Bureau of Meteorology is losing the currency that it has in regional Australia and right across the country.”

NSW Farmers president Xavier Martin said weather information was crucial for producers’ livelihoods and the website upgrade was ill-timed and ill-conceived.

“This was the last thing farmers needed to see coming into harvest and haymaking,” Martin said. “Now is not the time to have broken tools that we can’t use. We deserve better from the bureau - if we can’t see what’s coming, how are we meant to prepare for it?”

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