wikinews | Wikinews interviews Bureau of Meteorology, Australia over the AU$96.5M website upgrade bill announced by new CEO

In November 2025 the new Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) chief, Dr Stuart Minchin, confirmed that the agency’s website rebuild had cost AU $96.5 million – far above the originally advertised AU $4.1 million front‑end upgrade cap. The figure was disclosed after Environment Minister Murray Watt asked the new CEO to “get on top of” the bill and provide a full explanation. BOM said the overhaul was needed because the old site no longer met modern accessibility, security and usability standards, and that a complete rebuild was the only way to ensure a reliable, safe platform for the millions of Australians who depend on it for weather information.

The project was delivered by a consortium of private consultants, with Accenture receiving AU $78 million (up from an initial AU $38 million award) and Deloitte taking AU $35 million (up from AU $11 million), plus an additional AU $12.6 million for launch and security testing. While the rebuild was originally approved by the former Turnbull Liberal government, it continued under the subsequent Morrison and Albanese administrations; National Party leaders David Littleproud and former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce have publicly criticised the cost as excessive. BOM noted that the work also responded to a 2015 cyber‑attack that highlighted the need for a more resilient digital platform.

Since the new site went live on 22 October, BOM has rolled out several user‑driven improvements: radar and weather maps were reverted to an earlier, more intuitive layout; the default weather‑map view now shows rain reflectivity (dBZ); and fire‑behaviour index information was made more accessible on 7 November. The agency emphasised that the rebuild relies on widely adopted open‑source components and modern web standards to deliver better performance, accessibility and security, and that ongoing updates will continue to be guided by user feedback, research and business needs.

Read more: https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_interviews_Bureau_of_Meteorology%2C_Australia_over_the_AU%2496.5M_website_upgrade_bill_announced_by_new_CEO

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