{"id":400067,"date":"2025-11-23T23:01:37","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T23:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/400067\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T23:01:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T23:01:37","slug":"israel-strike-beirut-senior-hezbollah-figure-haytham-tabtabai-killed-barnaby-joyce-mulls-one-nation-defection-after-dinner-with-pauline-hanson-labor-environmental-reforms-to-pass-senate-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/400067\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel strike Beirut; senior Hezbollah figure Haytham Tabtabai killed; Barnaby Joyce mulls One Nation defection after dinner with Pauline Hanson; Labor environmental reforms to pass Senate this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bureau of Meteorology\u2019s unpopular new website cost millions of dollars more than previously reported, with the agency\u2019s new chief revealing the price tag for the heavily criticised redesign was actually $96 million, 24 times more than previously stated.<\/p>\n

In his first interview since stepping into the role two weeks ago, new bureau chief Dr Stuart Minchin said he intended to be transparent and admit mistakes the agency made, after its website changes were lambasted as destructive storms hit south-east Australia last month.<\/p>\n

Previous media reports revealed that the website, criticised as difficult to navigate and over changes to its radar map that made place names difficult to read<\/a>, had cost significantly more than the $4.1 million originally stated by the bureau, as this figure did not include a $78 million website design contract for private consultancy Accenture Australia.<\/p>\n

But Minchin said the total cost of the redesign, completed under former chief Dr Andrew Johnson, was even higher than reported. \u201cI\u2019ve looked into it. The total cost, when you add the Accenture work, the security testing and everything else, it\u2019s about $96 million,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Bureau<\/p>\n

Bureau of Meteorology chief executive Stuart Minchin.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

Environment Minister Murray Watt responded to the hefty price tag, but said he was confident in Minchin\u2019s new leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the BOM has got some explaining to do about that. We do have a new CEO of the BOM who only started two weeks ago after this all occurred. I met with him on his very first day. I\u2019ve met with him since, so twice in his first fortnight, and made very clear to him that I want him to get on top of the issues around the website, not just continue making changes to make it more usable but get on top of how we got to this situation in the first place,\u201d he told ABC Radio National this morning.<\/p>\n

Speaking earlier on ABC TV, Watt said: \u201cI was actually really heartened by the interview he provided [to this masthead] on the weekend where he acknowledged that there does need to be more transparency from the BOM\u2026 I\u2019m looking forward to a bit of a change in the culture and the approach of the BOM, and I want to make very clear that it\u2019s an institution that I very much support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read climate and energy correspondent Mike Foley\u2019s full report on the BoM website costings here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bureau of Meteorology\u2019s unpopular new website cost millions of dollars more than previously reported, with the agency\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":400068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-400067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115601506510860735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}