“The colour scheme we became accustomed to has changed, and platitudes from Canberra won’t cut it with Queenslanders.”
After interjections from the Labor opposition benches, Crisafulli accused them of “protecting their Labor mates in Canberra over protecting people with good information”.
Watt said he was told by Stone that the bureau was considering feedback and what adjustments could be made while preserving the website’s reliability.
“Australians deserve to have confidence in these important services,” the minister added. “My office and I will continue to engage closely with the BOM and ensure public safety is its foremost priority.”
In a statement to this masthead, the bureau said it had consulted the Australian community over 15 months, with “overwhelmingly positive” feedback.
“A dip in customer satisfaction is expected as customers familiarise themselves with the new website,” it said.
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“We expect satisfaction to increase as customers become accustomed to the new website and discover its benefits.
“The radar functionally is just one observation piece of a larger picture, on which we’re continuing to listen to feedback.”
Earlier, Queensland Treasurer David Janetzki told state parliament he had written to Watt to raise “significant concerns” with the new website, describing the changes to colour-coding of rainfall intensity and removal of Caboolture as a locator on the map as “critical flaws”.
“The decision to make the site live on 22 October – just as Queensland and Australia enter storm season – can, at its best, be described as short-sighted, while at its worst, it has put the lives and safety of Queenslanders at risk,” he wrote.
“Any updates to a website as vital and as widely relied upon as the BOM’s must be done with enough time for the public to become familiar with the changes, and ensure that access to critical information is quick and easy.
Sunday’s storm over Brisbane.Credit: Vasos Alexandrou
“None of the changes made achieve either of these objectives.”
Meteorologist Anthony Cornelius from Weatherzone said the storms that ripped through south-east Queensland demonstrated the problems with the rollout of the new website.
“It beggars belief that the BOM would roll out such a significant change to an essential infrastructure service just as the main storm season is about to start,” he posted on social media.
Most criticisms of the new website centred on the rain radar, which Cornelius said underestimated the intensity of the storm.
On Tuesday, the storm clean-up continued in the Brisbane suburb of Kenmore.Credit: Julius Dennis
Professor Liz Ritchie from Monash University’s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment said some complaints might stem from users’ unfamiliarity with the update, after having long experience with the previous site.
She noted the landing page for the weather radar presented viewers with a map that extended from Africa to well beyond New Zealand – a presentation that at first seemed cumbersome to her.
It appeared to her to have a longer lag time in the information it presented viewers. In an early viewing, she recalls having thunder above her while the radar suggested the squall line was still some distance away.
“People will become more familiar with it. Maybe they could have had a button to let people access the legacy site while they got used to it,” said Ritchie.
New England MP Barnaby Joyce also grumbled that he found the site difficult to navigate.
“It takes a special skill to find a website that was operating perfectly as far as the 2.6 billion hits it got a year and for $4.1 million turn it into what its own employees call a shitshow,” he posted on Facebook on Tuesday afternoon.
With Brittany Busch