By Jo Nova
Just when you think they can’t possibly squander money more extravagantly…
We were told it was $4 million but the truth is that the BoM spent $96 million dollars of our money to make their workable website truly awful. They just forgot to mention the private consultation by Accenture Australia for seventy eight million dollars.
It could have happened to anyone, right? Wrong.
The staggering TRUTH about the weather bureau’s disastrous website redesign – as boss finally admits the eye-watering real cost
Paul Shapiro, The Daily Mail
Now, the federal government’s weather agency is again on the back foot after it was revealed the loathed app cost taxpayers $96million to redesign and launch.
New bureau chief Dr Stuart Minchin has admitted that the total cost of the redesign, completed under his predecessor Dr Andrew Johnson, was much higher.
‘I’ve looked into it. The total cost, when you add the Accenture work, the security testing and everything else, it’s about $96million,’ he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
The new website changed the way the rain radars measured rainfall, and was dropped on Australians facing serious storms. The backlash was so bad, the BOM promised to bring back the old rain radar system.
David Littleproud tore strips of the BoM:
‘It is unbelievable a private consultancy was paid $78million to redesign the website, but then security and system testing meant that Australian taxpayers actually paid $96 million,’ Mr Littleproud said.
‘The seriousness of this cannot be understated. This isn’t just about a clunky website, the changes actually put lives and safety at risk.
It’s hard to believe they did a 15 month beta trial and the community “loved it”. Presumably they tested it on their own kids, and their friends at the ABC, but not on the people who’s lives depend upon the weather reports — the farmers, firefighters and fishermen?
In the spirit of the best Soviet production, the new site reeks of condescension, panders to woke ideology, treats everyone like they are in primary school and destroyed 10 million hours of productivity across the country by forcing millions of people who already knew the site to have to learn an entirely new architecture. All the knowledge Australians had built up on how to navigate the BOM data was tossed to the wind.
The BoM treats Australians as though their time is worthless and their money is infinite.
The only good thing about the new site is that the old site is still there. See reg.bom.gov.au.
…
Commenters at the Daily Mail were aghast that the BOM could spend so much on software.
FlowerPower says:
$100 million just thrown away into some greedy corporation’s pockets. This was taxpayers money. Who approach fee? Even more so when the original budget was only $4 million. I bet this has the Labor Party behind it somewhere? Ready to steal the glory….
The New Zealand upgrade to their Metservice cost $1.7 million dollars. Perhaps it wasn’t as awful? Kiwis may like to comment.
As I said then, bring back the old site….
ht Jon Rattin, David E., and apologies to another commenter who left the first tip about the cost blowout. I can’t find that comment!
Our local charity website was redesigned (updated and improved) for a few thousand UKpounds. It can be done at a sensible cost if you keep the government out of it.
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A Senate Enquiry anyone?
Next.
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feeding frenzy for the legal eagles?
Has anybody considered the “spillage” on this caper, alone??
It is ALL provocation of the peasants; the idea being to steal their future, money, liberty and self resect.
The idea, a very old one, is to bring on “dissent and unhappiness”, then play “whack-a-mole” with those who stick their heads above the parapet.
Once again, per Ayn Rand, in “Atlas Shrugged”:
“Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris.
“We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against… We’re after power and we mean it…There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
And, remember:
“When three or more people are gathered together to “plan action”, at least one of them will be a “government assett”. (Willingly, knowingly or, perhaps not.)
Also:
“Once is an incident.
Twice is Coincidence.
Three times is Enemy Action”.
Finally:
“Murphy was an optimist”
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$80 million is more than a million man-hours of work, possibly a lot more since Accenture would have outsourced most of it to India.
That’s more than 500 man-years.
It beggars belief.
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I tracked down the security review and it was done by a company called “CyberCX”.
Now before you go looking around … take one guess who owns CyberCX ?
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Blackrock.
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Legacy media: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Surely a young journo would be chomping at the bit to uncover the truth behind this one. Apparently not.
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Did they actually do the work that they were paid for. Would be interesting to see the invoices.
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Yeah, maybe they charged 80 Million, paid some Indians 1 Million, then the partners pissed 79 Million up against the wall on hookers and blow.
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And don’t forget the BoM is the main driver of global boiling and ruinables in this dump; and they can’t get a website update done!
Ruinables, like the new BoM website, do not work. You cannot run a modern grid on weather dependent, intermittent and unreliable energy sources. Ruinables also need a completely new grid because they produce DC not AC. Hugely costly inverters and synchronous condensers, which are both short lived, have to be built to convert what electricity ruinables do produce into compatible electricity for the real grid. Ruinables have a CF of 30% so they need vast and expensive backup. Whether it is batteries, which cannot happen at the current level of technology, or fossils, the backup is hugely expensive because you have a backup which has a secondary commercial role (because ruinables get preference in selling what electricity they produce) even though first stage costs have to be incurred to build it. Then there is the miniscule energy density of ruinables: they cover huge expanses of land much of which is then lost for real use whether agricultural, environmental or urban. Finally, ruinables receive vast subsidies, $22 -50 billion PA.
Ruinables are justified on the basis they will solve the global boiling crisis. Global boiling is a construct of the Club of Rome (see their 1972 Limits to Growth report which openly described their misanthropic intention and justified it on Malthusian claptrap). It has been taken up by the IPCC which is run by commies, and every Western nation run by Great March through the Institutions disciples and weak conservatives. Global boiling is simply refuted by the indisputable fact that even if you BELIEVE CO2 increase is causing global boiling, humans only contribute 3% of the increase of CO2.
https://archive.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-7-3.html
Advocates of global boiling and ruinables are either useful idiots, grifters or commie haters of the West. I don’t know which description best fits the BoM.
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In my humble opinion the advocates of Global Boiling and Ruinables are usually in part all three of those descriptions- grifters, useful idiots and Commie haters of Western culture. Those attributes often go hand in hand in the make up of the average leftie along with hypocrisy and delusion.
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I’m butting in here, but it’s almost an opportunity to see the Blob working in real-time. I saw this on 7news less than an hour ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx-pEjYEcSo
No mention of the Accenture consultancy fees. That money seemingly was used to convert data from various sources into “useable cyber-secure forecasts”. Great wording while Black Friday sales are on and there are warnings everywhere for scams and phishing.
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Back in the day, Government contracts were awarded on the basis of competitive tender and the offerings carefully scrutinised.
These days, politicians and public serpents will sign just about any contract shoved in front of their face, no matter how outrageous the cost. We learned that during the covid lockups.
Politicians and public serpents have no idea of the true value (or rather lack thereof) of the goods and services they buy with our tax dollars.
The difference between the claimed cost of the BoM makeover and the real cost should be taken from the taxpayer provided superannuation (retirement funds) and salaries of the responsible BoM employees until it is all repaid.
This sort of thing happens all the time over all departments. Look at SH2 for example, now over ten times the original claimed cost with no limit in sight. And no one, present company excepted, cares.
I think it comes down to the general innumeracy of politicians and public serpents. How many could tell you how many zeroes in the numeral one billion, for instance? Not too many I bet. Plus, they simply don’t care anyway.
It’s a disgrace.
No wonder Australian Government debts, federal, state and local are now well over two trillion dollars, $2,000,000,000,000.
http://australiandebtclock.com.au/
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Has anyone worked out just how many people were drawing a wage for this sum of money.
Do a quick sum. Let’s say they employed the best labour available, forking out $250k per annum for their services. And let’s assume it took 12 months to complete, a very, very long time, especially if you were using the best that money could buy. Remember, the system was already working, it may have needed tweaks not a restart from scratch.
So $96M divided by $250k suggests that nearly 400 people were working on this. BS.
This is a disgrace. One competent programmer and one competent manager should have completed this, include a committee to advise and review and then security test for $1M. All up costs should be down around $3M.
If this isn’t back charged to the managers superannuatrion account then this is going to happen again and again. Start the sackings.
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There are Apps an available on line, free of charge, that are more accurate than anything the BOM dishes up. In addition you can access weather forecasts for just about any where on the planet at the click of a mouse!!
I guess the BOM is considered to be free of misinformation etc. Pity it’s not free of Climate Change propaganda & obfuscation which is not deemed to be misinformation by the Government which pays the wages ,not to mention outrageous multi million $$ bills!
If by any slim chance conservatives were to win the next election there must be a serious draining of our swamp & the creatures wallowing in it!
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Australia needs a proper and comprehensive radar coverage – preferably Doppler. Fat chance of that happening when you’re trying to destroy the nation – and that is their intent and subjugate its enquiring minds to a space of nothingness. Dumb down like an idiot in TV land where all the weather is sunny, windy, rainy-like icons with Kindy faces. All there needs to be known because I can’t even look out my urban window and tell what sort of day it is. The national weather service is run by clowns that wouldn.t know which way winds circulate.
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But it isn’t incompetence David. It isn’t even politics. It’s corruption, pure and simple.
Follow the money!
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Obscurant liars. The incompetence part is a given years ago. Oh, they thought they could get away with it as we have mates in the ALP. Just to add, the previous chief was a smug ignorant piece of excrement gone on to another pasture. I’m that cranky I would give them a public flogging.
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Gotta keep The Laundry going!!
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Bingo.
The question should not be ‘how did BOM spend nearly $100MM on an unwanted website upgrade?’. It should be ‘how did BOM’s budget get so bloated and unwieldy that it can flush $100MM down the toilet and no notices until it is too late?’. Then repeat that question across every bureaucratic department in the government.
That was what the Trump/Musk DOGE initiative tried to do in the USA, with limited success. Why limited success? Because it was attacked, stonewalled, and sabotaged at every turn by a rabid media, mutinous public employee unions, lawyers seeing $$$ at all the billable hours they could create by trying to stop it, activist and political groups seeing $$$ at all the funding they could bilk out of millions of brainwashed ‘resistance’ liberals, and seditious judges looking to expand their article III constitutional powers and usurp article I (legislative) and article II (executive) powers as well. DOGE’s initial blitzkrieg took a bite out of the swamp, but once it settled into a war of attrition, the swamp pulled DOGE under and drowned it.
Which is why we need a DOGE 2, DOGE 3, etc. It will take multiple presidencies multiple decades to chop the government down to size (just as it took multiple decades to bloat to it’s current size). And every western democracy should be doing the same. I question whether there will be a the kind of sustained political will needed to finish the job, but I am certain that one way to ensure it won’t be finished is to give up in despair after the first battle is lost.
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“These days, politicians and public serpents will sign just about any contract shoved in front of their face, no matter how outrageous the cost.”
Just look at the hunk of junk signed that gives away our LNG for 30 years, no updates or increases allowed for, what clown signed off on that.
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The whole project needs to be audited by independent invrstigators plus the accounts forensically audited.
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David Maddison,
Don’t you think that’s going to cost us a whole lot in whitewash?
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Who can we trust to assign the auditors, can we trust that an impartial outcome will result devoid of ‘misinformation’ censorship?
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I wonder if the corporation who did the website or those involved in it also made “donations” to the Labor Party?
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The best that, (your), money can buy.
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I think we know the answer and probably a relation at Accenture in there as well David ??
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Nothing so obvious. The kickbacks will come somewhere down the line, well disguised. It could take the form of well-remunerated ‘consulting’ or board positions with a subsidiary of a subsidiary, or oddly huge payments to a charity which then pays consultants who work with the UN or WWF, who in turn cover the costs of a luxurious stay in the Maldives, or invitations to give talks at a conference in Geneva, all expenses paid.
There are SO many ways these favours will be repaid.
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They paid a quarter million for a new name, which nobody likes. Now, almost a hundred million for a new website which also nobody likes.
You might almost be tempted to think there’s looting going on. I would suggest follow the money because screw-ups usually happen entirely by accident.
If you think this is bad … just imagine what it’s gonna be like when these pirates get a hold of your Super.
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Yep
Then remember that BOM is an itty, bitty, tiny piece of the Australian federal government’s budget (less than 0.5%). Now imagine how much graft and looting is going on in the other 99.5% of the federal government. BOM flushing away $100MM is just a drop in the bucket.
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If you believe this, they have actually been cutting back on spending on consulting firms.
https://www.afr.com/companies/professional-services/labor-cuts-spending-on-major-consulting-firms-by-890m-over-two-years-20241104-p5knq2
Then again, you do wonder how they can be cutting back and yet still never have any money left to balance the budget … the money must be going somewhere.
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Just when you thought the BOM needed a BOMB, they double down. Politics in Oz is so pathetic that this $billion a year farce will be allowed to continue with net 0 Governance or scrutiny.
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Farmers identified the disaster very smartly. We are also fighting hard against the renewable fiasco. I wonder what we have that the whole of Canberra lack.
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Have the Liberal Party said anything about this outrage?
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They’ll probably need a year to work on a response, if they remember.
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The true cost might even be more than $96 million.
Even Their ABC admits to it.
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Their ABC wants to get its grubby mitts on some of that money.
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I thought that the ABC was in on it?
[snip off topic]
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How can we end the looting of public money and the destruction of our economy? If we wait till the next scheduled federal election it could be too late. Add to the looting reported in this Jo Nova article (Thanks Jo, you are a national treasure) the massive 70-year (!!) solar facility just signed into existence.
Grok (allowing for solar panel replacement and storage) estimate:
Annual output: ~32 TWh
Total cost: ~AUD 202 billion
For the same money over the same period, Grok’s estimate for coal:
Annual output: ~48 TWh
Interestingly, that’s Grok’s bold not mine.
[edit] FYI for coal, Grok assumed coal plants last ~40 years (one full replacement) and an 80% capacity factor
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Slow and steady wins the race. It’s an impossible task to stop it in a single election cycle. It’s taken decades to get where it is at, and it’s going to take decades to undo it. You’ve got to keep fighting and keep taking chunks out of it … unrelentingly … remorselessly … for decades.
Honestly, I don’t know if it can be done. Politicians are generally cowards who are unwilling to do things that will not improve their approval ratings. Finding even one with the courage to shrink the government is a near-miracle. Finding another, then another, then another is about as likely as being struck by lightning in the arctic. The more likely scenario is that the bloat will continue until economic collapse occurs.
I pity our grandchildren or great-grandchildren or great-great grandchildren who will have to live through the collapse. It may not be quite as bad as the Dark Ages were after the fall of Rome, but it will probably be significantly worse than anything in living memory. The closest I can imagine is what citizens of the former Ottoman Empire went through in the early 20th century when their government completely collapsed. Their descendants in the Middle East are still living with the consequences of collapse nearly a century later.
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I now use Weatherwatch TV with Phillip Duncan (a Kiwi) as its host. He does both Aussie and Kiwi weather.
It leaves the BOM for dead. He goes into the detail which farmers (and pilots) would find very helpful.
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Duncan is very good.
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I’m just an everyday user, but I like the new site much more than the old one. Except for the weather radar, which is useless. I’m glad I can still use the old site for that, but otherwise the new site is a whole lot easier to use and works just fine. I’m surprised at all the hate. But 96 million? I find that hard to believe. There must be a lot more going on behind the scenes.
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What is your position in the BoM?
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Graeme M,
I hardly looked at the old site, and I won’t look in at the new one much either, but it doesn’t seem *any* easier to me. Bigger fonts and less clutter, but that means less information.
*Both* are difficult to navigate from the front page. Which is kind of fair enough — there’s a lot of information — but regular users of either website would have to use bookmarks once they’d managed to find a page they wanted to use regularly. So what was the point of the rewrite? Arguably prettier, but it has messed up all those bookmarks that previous users had saved.
As for $96 million, I’m afraid I find that all too easy to believe.
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There are so many World Weather Web Sites that are more accurate than BOM
Like the ABC, why is Australia paying for BOM?
Sites like, Weather, Ventusky, Meteoblue, Windy, AccuWeather, Norwegian weather service Yr
are excellent
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The BOM is (unfortunately) a necessary organization.
They manage (budget for?) the weather radar system. (Correct me if wrong)
All the other weather reporting companies will use the information obtained from those radar stations. Note: Please ensure all radars have Doppler reporting of precipitation.
Testing of the “new” implementation?:
How much was performed on DESKTOP computers?
How much was performed by rural existing users?
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Just imagine how many minutes of grid scale battery power that $96 Million could buy…
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A major lithium-ion battery fire occurred at the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in Monterey County, California, on January 16, 2025.
This facility, owned by Vistra Energy, is the largest battery energy storage system (BESS) in the world, with a 300-megawatt capacity and approximately 100,000 lithium-ion batteries.
The fire burned for several days, prompting the evacuation of about 1,500 residents and the closure of schools in the area.
Although the fire was eventually extinguished, it reignited briefly and required ongoing monitoring.
The blaze released a plume of toxic smoke, leading to health concerns among nearby residents who reported symptoms such as burning eyes, nose, and throat, headaches, difficulty breathing, rashes, and a metallic taste in their mouths.
In a separate incident on August 30, 2025, a lithium-ion battery fire occurred at the California Flats Solar Plant in Parkfield, also owned by Arevon Energy, which is part of a Tesla-powered solar-plus-storage project.
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We only occasionally hear of excesses of this nature but they happen all the time. However, apart from independent investigators like Jo, we have a Lamestream Media including the taxpayer-funded ABC who are highly supportive of Labor Party policy and never ask difficult questions (or any significant questions at all).
There are far more snouts in the trough of your hard earned taxpayer dollars than nearly anyone can imagine.
And when did you last hear of anyone in the fake conservative Liberal Party complain about a waste of taxpayer dollars? They don’t. They were responsible for much of Australia’s economic ruination when Howard set us on the road to the objectives of the Kyoto Protocols in 1997 and the Liberals were also responsible for the disastrous Snowy Hydro 2 and many other crimes against our energy supply.
And how about the proposed COP31 which fortunately we are not now getting, the Ottomans are getting that. The Australian Government costed that at $1 – $2 billion dollars. I already presented calculations showing how ridiculously high that cost was for a conference of that size.
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Unquestionably, the senior management of BOM must be dismissed. But this will not happen because, as I understand it, public servants cannot be dismissed. We have de facto socialism.
We simply could not believe the horrific website when it was released. And quite frankly I was frightened. In particular, the impossibility of accessing the radar site that plainly portrayed approaching weather, was scary for those on the land, in particular.
Fear turned to rage, and I think this reflects the response of countless Australians. Thanks to this website, we were able to quickly access the old site, and we currently use it once more. But that is not the point. Where is the accountability for this fiasco? Will future debacles happen in other government departments?
Thie public service under this federal government has grown to ridiculous numbers. A not unexpected development under a government which is supported by unions that have a reciprocal relationship with government.
This country deserves better.- particularly our regions which are afflicted by the continuing obsession of the government with renewable energy construction which is devastating the land.
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Public servants can be dismissed, but only the honest ones.
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The one I used to have was the Sydney Forecast that broke down the districts – so I could see straight away what the forecasts were for Parramatte and Richmond, much more relevant to the Hills district. Then, it was easy to get the same level of detail for all the regions.
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That old one is still visible at https://reg.bom.gov.au/nsw/forecasts/sydney.shtml?ref=hdr
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And Sydney Observations
https://reg.bom.gov.au/nsw/observations/sydney.shtml?ref=hdr
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The Gladstone weather radar is STILL off-line, has been some four weeks now.
Perhaps the BOM could have spent some of that $96Million (or is it going to grow to the ABC’s admitted possible $150Million?) on a functioning unit for us. This radar breaks down regularly, especially since it was “upgraded” some years ago.
But – we’re only a major shipping port, where coal and gas are major exports that earn trade dollars for the nation, with a massive agricultural region surrounding us. It’s not as if nothing happens here that can be affected by weather – especially during the spring storm season, soon to be followed by summer with the cyclone potential.
As for the new site, I played around with it once, and that was more than enough. We don’t need bells and whistles, just good, reliable, easily-accessed information that is of relevance to us.
The cost of this new disaster must be reimbursed from the pay and superannuation (tax-payer funded) of those involved in dreaming up, designing and creating it. Enough. This sort of rort will not stop until it is stopped by there being actual consequences for such blatant waste.
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If you want to see even worse excesses of wastes of public money and extremely incompetent mismanagement, come to the Glorious People’s Undemocratic Republic of Sicktoria.
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Daniel Andrews, as Premier of Victoria, cancelled the East West Link toll road project shortly after taking office in 2014, a decision that led to significant financial and political controversy.
The cancellation resulted in the state incurring costs of approximately $1.1 billion, according to the Victorian Auditor-General’s report, which included payments to terminate the contract with the East West Connect consortium.
Plus
Suburban Rail Loop Cost Estimate Update
An independent analysis by Victoria’s Parliamentary Budget Office has projected the total cost of the Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) project to blow out to $216 billion to build and operate, up from a previous estimate of $200 billion in 2022. This update, released on March 13, 2024, includes both construction and 50 years of operational costs for the first two stages—SRL East and SRL North.
The $216 billion figure does not include the final phase of the project, which will extend the line from Werribee to Sunshine and include a long-awaited connection to Melbourne Airport.
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I have an engineer friend who calculated the cost of the proposed train lines if they were above ground and even had to purchase all the houses on and near the route at an average cost of $1 million and it would have still been a huge amount cheaper.
Who is profiting from these frightening amounts of money apart from the corrupt unions and Chinese construction companies?
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The UK Met office website has also been redesigned from easy to use, information rich pages, to huge coloured tiles so large you can only see abut three hours ahead without scrolling. Right now we can choose to keep the old site, but for how long? The won’t disclose the cost * as they are a government-sponsored body, and the website is a public service.*
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BTW it seems that most western governments are deeply in debt. It is increasingly looking like a global financial collapse is looking ever closer. As usual, the hard workers will go under the wave with the rest and governments rarely are held to account.
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Deduct $96 million from the next budget.
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Everyone should just relax.
One of the fundamental products of Blob Governance is outrage about waste and incompetence.
To produce hearings.
That divert attention away from the hearings to placate the outrage from the last outrage over waste and incompetence.
We should not let this distract us from storing survival food and looking for remote escape locations for surviving the inevitable collapse of Western civilization that appears to be the sacred goal of Blobism.
We can only hope that they demonstrate equal incompetence in achieving that goal as well.
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What a load of BS and certainly a con merchants wet dream.
But how long did it take for the Watt loony to realise that it cost 96 million $ or perhaps 50% more according to their ABC?
Watt should be made to step down ASAP.
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Let’s see who’s on the board of Accenture, shall we?
Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO
Of course she does.
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Good find Shy Ted.
I asked Grok:
(It also names Paul Daugherty, Senior Managing Director and Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, Contributor to WEF Reports and Initiatives.)
It looks like a complete WEF operation.
No wonder it was chosen for the job.
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https://www.weforum.org/organizations/accenture/
Many Accenture/ WEF publications there.
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List of Accenture speakers at WEF Davos 2024.
https://www.accenture.com/au-en/about/events/world-economic-forum
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Don’t quote me on this, but I have a distinct memory that the current Treasury Secretary is ex-Accenture. Can’t find evidence though – but at minimum, what I am certain of, is that she worked very closely with them on the $100 million Accrual Information Management System back in the 90s.
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I know a bloke in India that would have done it for $99.
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Doesn’t surprise me.
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The Western world, except the United States under TRUMP, is declining for much the same reason as the Western Roman Empire.
Massive overspending at the BoM on what should have been a relatively minor project is just a symptom of such decline.
In Rome, as in Australia and most Western countries there was and is:
– Corruption of public officials and their friends.
– Misuse of Treasury funds.
– Currency debasement by money printing (the Romans debased their coinage by diluting it with cheap alloys, reducing the silver content).
– Unsustainable spending.
– Unsustainable debt.
– Overspending on public works.
– Decline in public trust of government officials and institutions. In Australia that became particularly apparent after covid and now almost no thinking person trusts any politician, public serpent or even the police. A sure sign of a decaying society.
– Degradation of traditional moral values.
– Lack of law and order, look at Blue states in the US and Sicktoria in Australia.
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The new site just looks like AI slop. How much of this steaming hot mess was the well connected fooling around with AI for fun and profit?
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The design of the new site is just so bad. If the IT specialists thought the design suited young people/kids they were absolutely targeting the wrong demographic. Young people have no regard for weather or moreover have no desire or compunction to look up the weather. Anyone with kids or who works with young people would know this.
So users of the BOM want precise, reliable information in an understandable, compact but further expandable/drill down form for high requirement users.
Just how they could get it so wrong is mind boggling. Not only that the new technology of the website will not run on older devices (my Ipad 2 for example).
Their ABC, their BOM, their education (sic) system!
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Easy answer, they dont want us to have the information. They dont want farmers and fishers and people dealing with the elements to prosper. They want us to waste our efforts in frustration.
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Time to scrutinise assets / banking activity of the bommers.
Someone may have an insight into Democratic insider trading etc!
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The new BOM website is a waste of money, just think if all the money wasted was spent on something useful, like land rights for gay whales.
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Sigh, when you realise government is just a collection of criminal gangs which have taken over a territory and maintain their grip by violence or threats thereof in order to loot the wealth of the inhabitants, all falls into place.
What a sweetheart deal for Accenture. The people at BoM responsible for this outrage need to be investigated and possibly if corruption is found, charged, tried, found guilty and jailed. Loss of position and superannuation.
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I would imagine the cockroaches are already running to hide from any sunshine or bright lights which are starting to flicker.
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The public serpents act under an entirely different set of rules to everybody else. It was shown recently that the Esaftey commissioner and her staff spent 425K on domestic and international travel.
https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/esafety-chief-is-living-in-a-canberra-bubble-for-charging-taxpayers-for-her-travel/video/6ea6b25d98ec1600405b5036e83ef63a
When the Victorian Police Commissioner flew in a chopper across Bass Strait, their ABC went hysterical. Mike Bush needs to find a job that doesn’t require accountability.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-22/vic-police-commissioner-helicopter-flight-tasmania-apology/105919448
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By, “went hysterical”, do you mean they reported it accurately?
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They reported accurately then went to the effort of obtaining a comment from the Centre for Public Integrity. When it came to Julie Inman-Grant’s junkets, your ABC had nothing to say as far as l can see.
The irony is, a commissioner that should be at the top of her game in computer technology needs to cavort all over the globe on aeroplanes funded by taxpayers rather than communicating with her peers via Zoom or FaceTime.
So, given the ABC doesn’t report on JIG”s junkets and goes all in on Mike Bush, I’ll stick by the descriptor of “hysterical”. A figure speech of course.
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Investigated by whom? Their (probably) equally corrupt criminal gang mates in the ADF, ASIC, ASIO and other multiple letter agencies? Seems the days of Ministers losing their job over a bottle of wine gift etc are long gone, they and their bureaucrat blob mates can pillage the system with impunity these days.
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I wonder how much these children were paid for their services?
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And, quite conveniently, this can all be blamed on Andrew Johnson, since resigned. With nobody to blame (honest!) and new management in place, we’ll all be told to move along, no need to fret. A distraction will be put into operation should the flak get too bad.
This sort of thing will continue to get worse until politicians, public officials and fat-cat NGOs suffer actual consequences.
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He’s now running the Gladstone Port Authority. Maybe they should reconsider their choice.
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The BOM (Bunch of Muppets) has a BOMB.
It is now a BOM Bonanza.
And you can’t tell me that some BOM people have not done well out of all of this.
Senate Equiry and Audit coming up.
Next.
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For those interested you can see the BoM’s annual report for 2024-2025 including financial statements at:
https://www.bom.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-10/bureau-of-meteorology-annual-report-2024-25-full%5B1%5D_0.pdf
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Don’t use the BOM site much at all. Have always just used the generic apps/sites (Elders Weather, WindAlert, Windy etc) who get their data from the BOM. Lately, my first go to weather advice is just the iPhone Weather app. So, really I can’t see why the government would want to update/ refresh the site anyway. Seems like something the government should not be involving themselves in. It’s just a double up of all the commercial sites. Again, a case of government not knowing their true role, so much like the ABC. They should be boring but reliable. That’s all we want. No bells/whistles and clickbait/likes or ratings.
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Another recent perfect example of this government waste in doubling up was the Fuel Watch app recently launched by the Victorian government. It didn’t matter that there were already commercial apps essentially doing the same function.( eg 7-11 app) Nope. Let’s spend some more taxpayers money in reinventing the wheel. What’s crazy is that government departments don’t do “in-house” anyway, it’s all contracted out.
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Anyone know how much the WA government fuel watch app cost to build (and run)? Seems to work relatively well, though there is the random fuel outlet that seems to be “overlooked”.
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Don’t know and I wouldn’t use or trust a government run app. Petrol Spy is good and very accurate.
Speaking of fuel, why is LPG fuel for vehicles being rapidly made obsolete and unobtainable in WA? Remember when LPG was promoted as a truly green fuel alternative for passenger and commercial vehicles?
There are (or were) thousands of Holden and Ford and other brand sedans, wagons and utes still on the road that were sold from the factory with LPG only fuel systems that have found themselves unable to continue reliable, fuel efficient and cleaner emission travel as most Service stations have discontinued their LPG bowsers.
There’s maybe only 1 or 2 Servo’s with LPG in the entire South west region of WA and they too far apart to enable owners to continue using their vehicles. People are having to sell off these vehicles as spare parts as they can’t access fuel!
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It is not just the radar. If I intend to fly somewhere and try and look up the 7 day forecast for my destination all I get is Observations.
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The BOM 7 day forecast is not worth a cracker. Accuracy for the last 4 days of the 7 is pathetic but sometimes they are actually correct which is logical according to probability outcomes.
$96 mill for a $4 mill quote – who approved the scope/price variation claims? Who wrote the RFQ? Time to cut back their budget if they have so much cash to squander on such poor procurement processes.
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I think the reality is, that “homogenising” a.k.a. modifying historical temperature data is very very expensive. You can hide the cost of doing that in the cost of slowly developing a new website.
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Ditto the activity of denying Freedom of Information requests and data deletion to suit a Govt agenda.
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Yesterday the top header only had “The Bureau” so someone has changed that very recently.
An interesting finding about the actual website is that it is based on the well known Opensource Drupal CMS website builder so we know that they are actually relying on the inbuilt security and features of that software rather than creating a proprietary system from scratch(a smart move) This mysteriously expensive security testing should not have cost anything like $78m.
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And who are the entities behind Accenture Australia that can con this sort of money out of our beauracrats? There is a game I play these days, the answers are usually the same, just google the major shareholders of companies.
Here is what a quick look on google says about Accenture Australia “Accenture does not have a separate list of major shareholders for Australia, as it is a global company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The largest shareholders are large institutional investors such as Vanguard Group (approximately \(9.57\%\)) and BlackRock (around \(7.81\%\)). Other significant holders include State Street Corporation and Capital International Investors. Vanguard Group: Holds about \(9.57\%\) of the company’s outstanding shares.BlackRock: Holds approximately \(7.81\%\) of the outstanding shares.State Street Corporation: Holds a significant percentage of shares.Capital International Investors: Also a major institutional holder.
Those t-s persons who site in Canberra are not making decisions. They are feeding us to the above corporations. The fact that the site is useless and gives less information and wastes time and energy is a feature not a flaw.
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Profligate! My six legged little black mates accurately predict rain for free. The vertically hanging string does the rest.
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$96M?! That’s obscene. My mate Creative Jim would have done it for a few grand.
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So long as they don’t muck around with the mobile app.
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Think they already have. Now I can’t zoom in to my location to have a closer look at the rain map, and the rain map now seems to miss the light rain that was obvious previously.
Went for a walk recently based on the rain map showing no rain and was drenched.
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How does a damned website cost $96m, or even a tenth of that! Sounds like an incredibly massive scam being allowed by grubs or total idiots! Who received kickbacks?
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It smells like a scam of the highest order, might be enough to derail a government.
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Sack the new head (Dr Minchin). I found this at one site.
Anything that talks about “sustainable resources” or “data modelling” should flag suspicious minds.
This $96 million story is preposterous and I struggle to believe it is real. To add insult to absurdity I’ve found my 2018 Mac Mini cannot read the new site but I’m quite happy with the former web-site with its easy-read geographical lay-out.
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Yes. Absolute instant red flag from me.
And back in the day, you didn’t do modelling UNTIL you understood the data. Nowadays they generate the desired data with their fake models and alter or delete the real data.
Garbage In, Garbage Out as they used to teach.
But when someone tells a semi-literate and innumerate politician or the senior public serpent who tells the politician what to think, that they are doing “modelling” they get very impressed. Even though neither the supposed modeller, the politician or the public serpent have any clue whatsoever about the subject matter.
And these are all people getting paid huge and undeserved salaries with our precious hard-earned tax dollars.
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I don’t believe it. No one could spend $100million on a Web site. That’s over 30 new ab*riginal flags!
But if Malcolm Turnbull and wife can give themselves $444 million, no questions asked, why not? It’s other people’s money. The mugs.
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Surely a criminal investigation is required for the theft of $95,999,000 because a web designer in Pakistan could have done it for $1,000.
A prime example of why Australia can’t be fixed.
Close the BOM and go back to the “rock on a string” (more accurate than “Blow Our Money” anyway).
If the rock is wet, it’s raining.
If the rock is swinging, the wind is blowing.
If the rock casts a shadow, the sun is shining.
If the rock does not cast a shadow and is not wet, the sky is cloudy.
If the rock is difficult to see, it is foggy.
If the rock is white, it is snowing.
If the rock is coated with ice, there is a frost.
If the ice is thick, it’s a heavy frost.
If the rock is bouncing, there is an earthquake.
If the rock is under water, there is a flood.
If the rock is warm, it is sunny.
If the rock is missing, there is a tornado.
If the rock is wet and swinging violently, there is a hurricane.
If the rock can be felt but not seen, it is night time.
If the rock has white splats on it, watch out for birds.
If the rock is levitating, you’re stoned.
If there are two rocks, you’re drunk.
100% correct, cost $0.
Redesign by clowns optional at $95M.
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By the way, this could have been horrifying you all weeks ago if you’d paid attention to our national broadcaster
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-05/true-cost-of-bureau-of-meteorology-new-website/105948508
Commenters at the [Daily Mail] ABC on X were aghast that the BOM could spend so much on software.
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Hi Joanne
Thank you so much for the link to the old site.
I used to start with the 128 k Captains Flat radar page multiple times a day. Now I can again.
Most important info on the web this week for me.
Thanks again, Tony.
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Glad to help.
We should FOI the stats. Find out how many people are using the old site.
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+1
Well actually likely +8 since during “weather” that is how often I would look at the radar maps.
Make certain to get the stats on the “new” version as well.
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Here ya go.
New BOM – 38M in October, average time there 15 min.
Old BOM – 2.2M in October, av. time 15 min.
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I just tried the new “improved site”.
EEEEK!
No thanks.
They’ve tried to reinvent the wheel!
$96 Million?
Wow…maybe the BOM would be interested in a slightly used Opera House I’m trying to sell?
40
it really burns my p*ss that I have to go to a job I don’t particularly enjoy for 40+ hours plus 6 hours travel time per week that is eating away at my soul, to be taxed tens of thousands, just for these swamp creatures to hand over our taxed money to their slimy corporate mates for bogus “services” that deliver poorer outcomes for us!!
I guess I’m the dumb one to end up on the wrong side of the fence!?
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The politicians and public serpents see hard working people as an endless supply of money to ingratiate themselves with high salaries and excellent conditions and see us as serfs or slaves. But as with the decline of the Roman Empire, sooner or later the supply of slaves dries up.
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Global boiling? 😁
A poser:
If the agenda is global population reduction by 90% then what need is there for endless data centers popping up like mushrooms after rain?
/big(ger) picture
80
They will get Robots and Androids.
No need for Human Slaves then. Robots and Androids don’t get sick or need Super and LSL.
Don’t even need wages just oiling. LOL
60
Wasn’t “The Matrix” a doco and not a fictional movie, they’ll need us for an energy source!!
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The guy who knows where oil is needed and where it is catastrophic will live well.
Mammas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys,
Let them be plumbers and sparkies and such.
Apologies to Willie and Waylon.
10
Hope everyone read Chris Uhlmann’s piece in LAST WEEKEND’S AUSTRALIAN.
It’s brilliant and takes aim at a current Senate Inquiry to shut down people and sites like this that speak out against federal government actions using ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’ or direct lying.
It is directed particularly at protecting government anti-global warming actions and ‘the science’. It is part of a world wide movement and being resisted very weakly. It’s a straight censureship enforcement procedure.
Uhlmann’s piece is brilliant,imo.He refutes and defends very well but says everyone seems asleep at the wheel (my interpretation).
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This quote immediately springs to mind.
What other “disinformation”/ free speech will they be censuring next?
A man in Germany was raided by police over a post in which he criticised politicians and public servants. Apparently that is now hate speech.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNvC3boK74M&t=25s
Coming soon to Australia?
what little respect I had for politicians has long disappeared.
60
About 15 years ago Queensland Health got IBM to redo their payroll system. Estimated $6 million IIRC, wound up costing $600 million IIRC. Also didn’t work at first. I guess it has been fixed.
50
Follow the money trails
30
Is it perchance called ‘Horizon’?
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All weather is normal if you go back far enough. All weather cycles are based on Astronomy. Anyone who wants a copy of the my article “Global warming” scam and “Computer model” scam can email me. [email protected]
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